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Mosquitoes have killed more than half of all humans who have ever lived — even more than war, plague, famine, and heart disease. By transmitting malaria, mosquitoes cause anywhere from one to 2.7 million deaths each year. And experts say that if nothing is done about it, the annual death toll could double in the next 20 years.
Thankfully, human ingenuity is on the case and there are no shortage of ideas. Scientists are aggressively tackling the malaria problem — and indications are that we'll soon turn the tables in our favour. Let's take a look at some of the most promising possibilites.
To help us survey some of these efforts, we recruited the help of professor Marcelo Jacobs-Lorena of the Malaria Research Institute of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Not only is Jacobs-Lorena an expert in this field, he is actively working on a cutting-edge solution that could make a profound impact in the struggle to rid the world of this blight.
Hardy, resilient, and adaptable
Part of the problem in dealing with malaria and mosquitoes is that both of these organisms are incredibly resilient.
Mosquitoes are proving to be a rather hearty species, exhibiting a remarkable resilience when hit with drugs and insecticides. As a result, these kinds of interventions are proving insufficient. And malaria is even worse. According to Jacobs-Lorena, no one has been able to create a vaccine largely on account of its hyper-adaptability to the human immune system.
"The parasite lives in very intimate contact with the immune system of its human host," he told io9, "It infects red blood cells and lives in the circulation — so throughout millions of years cycling through humans, the parasite has adapted to escape the human immune system."
But as Jacobs-Lorena tells us, a phase 3 trial of a malaria vaccine was recently completed in Africa. The results of the study, which involved over 15,000 children, showed that the vaccine can offer protection against both clinical and severe malaria — an extremely promising result.
While a vaccine would certainly be welcome news, scientists are also working on other strategies, including efforts to reduce mosquito populations and to modify the bug itself.
Population control
One scientist who is working to downsize mosquito populations is Weiguo Fang of the University of Maryland. He's developing a kind of chemical warfare against the insect that involves a fungus loaded with a compound found in scorpion venom. The fungus happens to like mosquitos and it invades their body, slowly killing it. Fang has modified the fungus to target the malaria parasites inside the mosquitoes. His intervention causes impairments to the mosquito's mouthparts, blocking the malaria parasite's path to its human host. As for the scorpine (from emperor scorpions), it attacks the Plasmodium (the malaria parasite) directly. His strategy has been shown to reduce the number of parasites in mosquito saliva by as much as 98%.
Another way to control mosquito populations is by interfering with their life cycle. Tullu Bukhari and Bart Knols have developed a strategy that sees a special liquid spread across standing water. The liquid forms a very thin surface film, disrupting mosquito reproduction. Pupae in the water all die within two hours of of the liquid being spread, while none of the larvae get to advance to the the pupa stage. The film also prevents mosquitoes from laying their eggs on the water. The product is called Aquatain AMF, and was originally intended for controlling evaporation from large pools of water. Its Australian inventor, Graham Strachan, claims that the environmental impacts are minimal, and that mosquitoes can't develop resistance. He says it's safe to use on drinking water, and can be applied from simple squeeze bottle.
Knols also recently demonstrated a pill during a recent TED Talk. After ingestion, the pill causes the death of any mosquito which bites him. His vision is to see this pill made accessible to a wide population — the idea being that, if enough people take it, the mosquito population could be dramatically reduced. The problem with this idea, of course, is that mosquitoes will adapt quickly.
Lastly, Joe Conlon, a technical adviser for the American Mosquito Control Association, has proposed a cocktail of approaches, including the dispersal of larvicide (which is less harmful than pesticides), planting Ovitraps (which attract egg-laying females), and, where possible, getting rid of water sources that help mosquitoes to breed.
A different approach, albeit a more controversial one, is genetically modifying mosquitoes. And interestingly, there are several different ideas on the best way to do this.
Anthony James from UC Irvine has outlined a plan in which modified genes affect only the female mosquitoes, rendering them flightless. James's strategy results in larvae that are hatched on the water, but with females who are unable to leave. Males remain unaffected and can pass the genetic modification on.
Marcelo Jacobs-Lorena has also considered genetic modifications — but his strategy has been a bit different. Rather than work to reduce mosquito populations, he wants to modify the insect such that it is not able to transmit the disease; instead of attacking mosquitoes will belligerent force, Jacobs-Lorena has taken the more elegant Jiu-Jitsu approach.
Back in 2002 his team loaded mosquitoes with a modified gene that resulted in the production of a substance that kills off Plasmodium. The result was a transgenic mosquito with an anti-malarial gene.
"But the problem with this approach," he conceded, "is that if we want to go to the next step and introduce these genes into mosquitoes in the field, that suddenly becomes a very difficult proposition." Indeed, the prospect of replacing an existing population with genetically modified mosquitoes is incredibly daunting.
"While this worked well in the lab," said Jacobs-Lorena, "it was impossible to load wild mosquitoes with the anti-malarial gene." Moreover, should this be done in the wild, biologists must also ensure that the modified mosquitoes out-compete the unmodified ones, so that the gene passes from one generation to the next via natural breeding — and before the malaria parasite evolves a countermeasure. This is the same problem that could be faced by Anthony James and his flightless GMO mosquitoes.
This is why Jacobs-Lorena and his team have come up with a better idea. "Like us humans, mosquitoes carry significant microbial flora in their gut — and by sheer coincidence it's the most vulnerable part of the malarial life-cycle," he said. He described how bacteria and the malaria parasite reside in the same compartment. That's when he got the idea that, instead of creating transgenic mosquitoes, he should create transgenic bacteria. "That's a much easier task," he admitted.
And indeed, this is exactly what Jacobs-Lorena has done.
Along with Sibao Wang, he has engineered symbiotic bacteria from vector mosquitoes. All malarial mosquitoes have Plasmodium in their stomachs, which enters into the blood of every person a mosquito bites. Wang and Jacobs-Lorena discovered a kind of gut bacteria that, when introduced into the guts of mosquitoes, is able to fight off the malaria parasite. In turn, the researchers want to load mosquitoes with this gene. So, instead of an outright genetic modification, they could inject the Plasmodium-killing gene into the bacteria that lives inside a mosquito's stomach.
Getting it into the real world
The challenge with this approach, however, is getting the transgenic bacteria into wild mosquitoes in sufficient numbers. One idea is to load sugar-soaked cotton balls with the bacteria, and place them in baiting stations around villages in malaria territory.
But assuming this could be done, another problem is whether the malaria could adapt to the bacteria. "That's a very good point," said Jacobs-Lorena, "which is why we developed several effector genes that kills the parasite in different ways." He explained how the bacteria employs multiple strategies — a very deliberate attempt to reduce the probability of selection. "Resistance to one would be just fine," he said, "but it would be extremely unlikely for it to develop all the mutations required to survive all of them."
But there are other challenges facing Jacobs-Lorena when it comes to introducing his transgenic bacteria in the field. He told io9 about the difficulties he and others face in dealing with regulatory issues. Even though the GMOs are intended to save lives, there are fears of unintended consequences. Moreover, he will have to convince local populations about what they plan to do and get their approval before they can conduct any experiments. "I feel quite optimistic about the technical aspects," he said, "but it is quite hard to predict how easy or difficult it will be to get approval for actual field releases."
But this hasn't stopped others. The British company Oxitec unilaterally decided to release their GMO mosquitoes (the ones developed by Anthony James) in 2011. Writing in Gizmag, Loz Blain explains what happened:
But while James' "netted laboratory" follows the traditionally cautious scientific approach, one of his partners has been decidedly more gung-ho about it.
Luke Alphey, whose company Oxitec was originally hired by James to design the flightless female genetic modification, is so confident that these genetic warriors work, and that there will be no environmental ill effects, that he has taken advantage of the lack of regulation in many areas to conduct full scale field tests in the wild.
Oxitec's historic first release of GM mosquitoes in 2009 killed an estimated 80% of the A. aegypti population on the Grand Cayman island in the Carribbean - a geographically isolated area.
More mutant, autocidal mosquitoes have been released in Malaysia, and the technique is reportedly going into large scale production in Brazil.
James sees Oxitec's full-speed-ahead approach as a potential risk to the entire science of genetic modification. "That's the difficulty of working with corporations," he told Scientific American, "I can't control corporate partners."
Indeed, the GMO cat may already be out of the bag. Malaysia recently released 6,000 genetically modified mosquitoes into the wild to drive down incidents of mosquito-borne dengue fever — and they did so despite protests from environmental groups and NGOs. These precedents show that corporations and desperate countries will take matters into their own hands.
All-out assaults
Releasing GMO mosquitoes into the wild may seem like an extreme approach, but there's another, more potentially severe idea that's been floating around the ether: The complete extinction of mosquitoes. While nobody in particular is proposing that we do this, Jacobs-Lorena admitted to io9 that some scientists are talking about the possibility. But he cautioned against this "selective extinction" of mosquitoes.
First, he warned that mosquitoes are likely to develop a resistance to insecticides. "They're not the magic bullet we're looking for," he said.
Second, even if we imagine an ideal situation in which we've eliminated every mosquito from a target area, we've still got a biological niche that's highly favorable to mosquito populations. "All it would take are a couple of mosquitoes to fly in from a neighboring area," he said, "and since the niche remains intact, the population will quickly return to previous levels."
But an all-out assault doesn't have to involve the complete eradication of the insects. As the work of all these scientists has revealed, there may never be one best approach to dealing with the malaria problem. In fact, none of these approaches may work — but an orchestrated assault could yield tremendous results.
If anything, these promising lines of research shows that malaria's days are likely numbered.
Top image via Dmitrijs Bindemanis/Shutterstock.com. Inset images via PLOS, Green-Flow, TopNews.in, pmi.gov.


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JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A Northside church has been at the center of a controversy for nearly a month since allowing a registered sex offender to return to the pulpit.
In 2009, Darrell Gilyard pleaded guilty to lewd conduct and lewd molestation. The victims were underage girls in his congregation at Shiloh Baptist Church.
In the past few weeks, Gilyard began preaching at Christ Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church on the Northside. His new position drew protests from other pastors and the New Black Panther Party.
Since taking the position, Gilyard would not speak to television reporters. Channel 4 looked up his address on the sex offender registry and went to a motel where he was staying in North Jacksonville.
The first time reporters approached Gilyard, he dropped his things and slammed the door. Moments later, he came outside and got into his car without saying a word.
Since joining Christ Tabernacle on North Davis Street, the congregation has had to adapt to changes. Under the terms of Gilyard's release, court documents show he is not allowed to have "unsupervised contact with children under 18 years old." The church agreed to ban children from Sunday service.
Sunday, a woman tried to bring a 2-year-old boy she babysits to services, but was turned away.
"They said for the next two weeks, no children are allowed," Wanda Evans said. "This is the second Sunday, no children, so next week's Sunday, kids will be able to be allowed."
Last week, members of the new Black Panther Party of Jacksonville promised to protest every Sunday that Gilyard was a pastor at the church. This Sunday, however, there were no demonstrations.

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South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences
On-line version ISSN 2222-3436
Print version ISSN 1015-8812
S. Afr. j. econ. manag. sci. vol.16 n.4 Pretoria Jan. 2013
Content analysis of published articles in the South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences
Yolanda Jordaan; Melanie Wiese; Karim Amade; Ermi de Clercq
Department of Marketing Management, University of Pretoria
The publication of academic research is important for its contribution to the body of knowledge. A periodic analysis of journal content leads to the identification of research practices; while it also identifies the challenges that researchers face. The South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences (SAJEMS) is considered to be one of the leading publications in the field of economic and managerial research in South Africa. The SAJEMS was selected as the unit of analysis; and a content analysis was conducted on 257 articles published during the seven-year period 2004 - 2010. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the input and output factors relating to published articles, including questions on authors and article content, such as the various methodological approaches. The findings revealed that there has been a decrease in co-authored articles during the period 2005 - 2008. Although the contribution by practitioners increased significantly in 2005 and 2008, the majority of the articles are still authored predominantly by academics. It is promising to see that international authors were involved in nearly 20 per cent of the articles contributed. When it came to the methodological approaches, the articles employed largely non-probability sampling designs. Furthermore, almost two-thirds of the articles published in SAJEMS were based on quantitative research designs. This content analysis reveals the current research practices published in the SAJEMS. It provides food for thought for academics.
Key words: content analysis, journal analysis, managerial research, South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences, journal characteristics
1 Introduction
Academic researchers regularly receive the most recent issues of various scholarly journals reporting on the latest academic research. However, rarely do research articles in such journals reflect on the research practices used by the other researchers who publish in them (Holbert, 1997). Holsapple, Johnson, Manakyan and Tanner (1993) argued that it is important to take stock periodically of the channels, such as journals, available for communicating scholarly discourse and research. Assessing the development, dissemination and use of knowledge in a field of study by examining its publication outlets at intervals provides consumers of the research, such as editors, academics and researchers, with a view of where the discipline has been and where it might be going (Bush & Grant, 1994).
Taking stock of the content of journals has several benefits. First, it acts as a guide for potential authors regarding changes in content and methodology that might help direct future publications. Secondly, such reviews could reveal new opportunities for the journal, and could possibly identify areas relevant for special editions (Phelan, Ferreira & Salvador, 2002). Additionally, it may help to reveal trends in the literature, identify gaps, assist journal editors in developing agendas for guiding future research efforts, and ultimately lead to publishing opportunities (Bush & Grant, 1994).
The publication of academic research contributes to the body of knowledge, as it reveals insights that have been formulated and contextualised scientifically. When evaluating the contribution of academic research to the body of knowledge, one should examine the inputs and outputs of the published research (Bush & Grant, 1994:59).
Several previous studies have explored and analysed academic journals, predominantly in terms of their authorship, the institutions represented, the methodology followed and the topics covered (Albaum & Peterson, 1984:161173; Yale & Gilly, 1988:12-22; Kolbe & Burnett, 1991:243-249; Hetzel, 2000; West, 2007:543-554). Other studies have analysed the outputs of academic research by focusing mainly on the content of an article, its length, the various research approaches and the theory-building trends (Inkpen & Beamish, 1994; West, 2007; Beaty, Nkomo, & Kriek, 2009).
When it comes to analysis of the content of South African journals, a few reviews have been conducted in the field of economic and management sciences (Clark, Dick, Epperecht, Du Plessis, Matlakala, Moremi, Raganya, Rich, Richards, Sewpershad & Timm, 2002: 67; West, 2006:121; Baker, 2008:411; Brown & Tanner, 2008:14). One study was conducted by Beaty et al. (2006), in which the writers reviewed the articles published from 1994 to 2004 in six South African management journals, including the South African Journal of Management Sciences, Management Dynamics and the Southern African Business Review. Another South African study conducted a joint investigation into the management literature published between 1996 and 2010 in the South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences, Management Dynamics and the South African Journal of Business Management (Botha, Lilford & Pitt, 2011).
In both South African studies, the investigations were broad, and only a few variables across several journals were analysed.
To date, no journal-specific investigation has been conducted into the state of the academic research published in the South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences (SAJEMS). According to Botha et al. (2011:90), the SAJEMS is considered to be a prominent publication in interdisciplinary research in the field of economic and managerial research in South Africa and Africa. It is also one of the few accredited managerial journals in South Africa. Its status is confirmed by the fact that the SAJEMS is a refereed scientific journal, which is accredited by both Thomson Reuters in their Social Sciences Citation Index, and the South African Department of Education. The SAJEMS is also indexed and abstracted in EconLit (the electronic database of the Journal of Economic Literature).
The main purpose of this study is, therefore, to conduct a content analysis of the articles which appeared in the SAJEMS from 2004 to 2010, with the aim of viewing the inputs and outputs of the published research in SAJEMS. If economic and management research is to progress, it is important for researchers to assess the methods they employ (Scandura & Williams, 2000). This investigation aims to identify practices and possible challenges faced by the economic and management field and the journal per se.
2 The literature review
2.1 The South African research environment
A number of factors shape and affect the research environment in South Africa. The main characteristic of this environment is the increasing pressure under which academics find themselves to publish in peer-reviewed and/or accredited journals. The two institutions driving this process are the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) and the National Research Foundation (NRF).
In 2003, the DHET announced that Universities would qualify for subsidies for research output only if the publication in which an article appeared featured in the indices of the Institute of Scientific Research, or in the index of the International Bibliography of Social Sciences. Should the journal not be listed in any of the above, there is a special DHET-approved list of South African journals (updated annually) that are also eligible (Academy of Science of South Africa, 2010). South African academics are thus expected to publish in the listed journals in order to be recognised for their research output, but more importantly to receive DHET subsidisation for their respective institutions.
Another driver in terms of research is the NRF, which encourages researchers to obtain a rating via its Researcher Evaluation and Rating (RE & R) initiative. This promotes and safeguards research excellence, as well as ensuring that top researchers are easily identifiable. The ratings are conducted by researchers' peers, while the NRF manages the rating process. According to the rating system, researchers are evaluated and benchmarked based on the quality and impact of their previously-published academic research (Pouris, 2007:439). The focus of the rating system is international, the objective being to define the standing of researchers in the international arena (Vaughen, 2008). Researchers are allocated a rating (ranging from A to C), whereby an A-rating denotes researchers who are considered world leaders in their research field (MacGregor, 2008).
The process requires a researcher's outputs to be evaluated every five years by at least six expert referees, many of them from international institutions (Vaughen, 2008). Further, a researcher's rating affects his or her level of financial funding, as five-year grants, for example, are available only to rated researchers (Krige, 2007:57). Accordingly, there is a great deal of pressure on academics to obtain NRF ratings.
Both the DHET and NRF place emphasis on the publications in peer-reviewed journals, so it is important for researchers to understand how these publications work and what type of research they publish.
2.2 Previous research into the state of journals
An examination of the existing literature has shown that studies examining the content of academic journals typically focus on one or two (and sometimes both) of the following areas: factors that can be characterised as inputs, and those that can be categorised as outputs. Input factors concern mainly the authors of the articles published and include variables like the number of authors and the author affiliation. Output factors, on the other hand, concern mainly the articles presented for publication, and include variables like the length of articles and the methodologies employed in the study.
2.2.1 Input factors: Authorship
184.108.40.206 Number of authors
Both authors and institutions represent the inputs of journal articles. There has been a noticeable trend for articles to be published by two or more authors, showing a decrease in single authorship. Previous research shows that the single-authored article is in decline. Smart and Bayer (1986:297), Inkpen and Beamish (1994:707) and West (2007:547) have all found an increase in co-authored articles, especially those by two or three authors.
A possible explanation for this phenomenon is 'knowledge sophistication', which suggests an increase in interdisciplinary topics, and advances in statistical techniques and analytic-cal software, which are conducive to the involvement of more expertise (Manton & English, 2007:166). This knowledge sophistication consequently requires more expertise than a single author may possess, which explains the increased need for co-authorship.
126.96.36.199 Affiliation of article author(s)
Author affiliation is another area that has received extensive coverage in studies examining the content of scientific journals. Recent studies have pointed to the blurring of international borders owing to the advent of the digital age, which has resulted in an increasingly cosmopolitan body of authors in several academic publications. Chan, Karolyi and Rhee (2002), Otchere (2003) and West (2007) all found a significant contribution by foreign authors when they examined the contributor base of the Pacific Basin Finance Journal, Finance and Accounting, and the International Journal of Advertising.
Another common theme identified by previous studies was the noticeable prevalence of authors affiliated with a journal's home institution. Gallagher (2006:149), for example, found that the institution with the most articles published in the Australian Management Journal was the Australian Graduate School of Management, the home institution of the journal. This belonged to the University of New South Wales, which ranked second. The trend was supported by findings from a study by Otchere (2003:220) showing that there was a strong correlation between the editor's home institution and the institutions that published the specific journal.
Another issue associated with author affiliation relates to academics as opposed to practitioners as authors, with international research reporting a divide between the two groups (Tapp, 2004; Brennan, 2004). Research by Hetzel (2000:702) revealed that only 11 per cent of French academics who publish spend any time working in industry. A few years later, Otchere (2003:219) determined that only 4 per cent of articles published in Accounting and Finance had non-academic participation. West (2007:548) confirmed this notion when he revealed that the majority of authors in a specific journal were academics, with only 2 per cent of articles for the years 2002 to 2006 being written by practitioners.
According to Inkpen and Beamish (1994: 703) and Malhotra (1996:53), an investigation of authorship is important, as the author determines the topic, the methodology, the research objectives and the target population. This has served as the motivation to investigate the authorial practices in articles published in the SAJEMS.
2.2.2 Outputs: Article contents
188.8.131.52 Research methodologies used by authors
One of the most popular platforms for examining the contents of an academic article is the research method followed. Empirical research refers to observation and propositions based on observation and/or derived from "such experience methods as inductive logic, including mathematics and statistics" (Cooper & Schindler, 2008:71). A general observation is that empirical methods are popular in the management sciences, with surveys being the most widely used. Bush and Grant (1994:62) reported that using surveys represented almost half of the total number of methods employed.
In a study examining the articles published in six publications, the Journal of Advertising, the Journal of Advertising Research, the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of Marketing Research, Current Issues and Research in Advertising, and the Journal of Consumer Research, it was found that 70 per cent of the published studies could be described as being empirical in nature (Yale & Gilly, 1988:17). A total of 70 per cent of the articles published in the International Journal of Advertising for the period 1992 - 2006 also used empirical methods (West, 2007:549).
This is the same percentage as that found by Yale and Gilly (1988), which suggests that not much has changed in this regard.
A study examining research trends in the Academy Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly and the Journal of Management found that there has been a decrease in the number of literature review/ pure conceptual studies. The same study found that survey research accounted for just 3.6 per cent of all published studies (Scandura & Williams, 2000:1256). In 2006, Svensson (2006: 1161) reported that 120 of the 150 articles published in the European Journal of Marketing during the period 2000 - 2004 used quantitative research methods. Following Svensson's study, Nilsson, Flores, Berkel, Schale, Linnemeyer and Summer (2007:606) confirmed that the majority of articles (79.8 per cent) used quantitative research methods.
In the same year, Hanson and Grimmer (2007:63-64) investigated 1195 academic journal articles for the period 1993 - 2002; and they also concluded that only 6.5 per cent of the articles included qualitative research methods, thereby confirming the extensive use of quantitative research methods.
184.108.40.206 Sampling designs
Albaum and Peterson (1984:167) identified non-probability sampling as the main choice of sample design in the Journal of International Business Studies. Poon and Rowley (2007) also found that non-probability sampling was used in the majority of instances, together with convenience and judgemental sampling.
The findings by West (2007) indicated that professionals were the group most commonly sampled in studies published in the International Journal of Advertising. These findings were in line with those by Scandura and Williams (2000), who showed that managers and professionals (23.3 per cent) were the most frequently-used sample units, followed by mixed studies (11.9 per cent) and students (10.7 per cent). Chia-Ping (2003) found that only 13 per cent of the articles in three management and information journals did not describe the sample frame, and that the majority of sample frames referred to geographic locations or commercial lists.
126.96.36.199 Statistical methods
Gupta, Verma and Victorino (2006:436-437) reviewed 150 articles published in the Production and Management Journal from 1992 - 2005; and they found that authors used a wide range of multivariate analysis techniques. These included techniques like discriminate analysis, factor analysis, MANOVA and time-series analysis. They also found that several authors used analytical approaches, such as mathematical modelling and simulation. The authors further observed that the majority of articles used more than one statistical technique.
Articles that made use of survey research used mainly descriptive statistics, correlations, regressions, ANOVA and simulations. Finally, Gupta et al. (2006) reported that descriptive analysis approaches were used more frequently than advanced multivariate statistical techniques. It is evident that output variables, such as research methods, sampling designs and statistical methods, have been investigated in international journal reviews. Such journal-specific reviews are, however, lacking in South Africa.
3 Research objectives
The literature discussion above makes it clear that although periodic reviews of journals are undertaken internationally there is a lack of journal-specific reviews in South Africa. There has been no journal-specific evaluation or review of the research published in the SAJEMS; and this study aims to provide insight into the state of South African academic economic and management research by analysing and reporting on the content of this journal from the year 2004 - 2010. The content analysis of the inputs and outputs of the SAJEMS for the seven-year period included 257 articles in total. This time frame was selected on the basis of its being recent, and because of the time and resources available to the researchers.
As an interdisciplinary publication, the SAJEMS addresses a wide variety of topics, with a focus on consumers, firms and/or regulators. The objective of the study was to investigate various input variables (such as number and affiliation of authors) and output variables (aspects discussed in article contents, such as research methodology, sampling designs and statistical methods). Additionally, the following research questions were formulated:
- What are the practices in terms of single and multiple authorship over the seven-year period?
- Are some sampling designs preferred by certain disciplines?
- Are some sample units preferred by certain disciplines?
- Are some statistical analyses preferred by certain disciplines?
4 Methodology
Studies of scholarly literature can be categorised into six dimensions: publishing productivity; comprehensive reviews; meta-analyses; specific journal investigations; methodological investigations; and citation analyses (West, 2007). This study can be categorised as a specific journal investigation, which includes aspects of methodological investigation. Hutchinson and Lovell (2004:386) suggest that methodological approaches tend to be stable over a five-year period. Regarding sampling, a census method applies in this study, and all the articles (257) which appeared in the SAJEMS for the period 2004 - 2010 were included in the sample.
4.1 Reliability of the study
Inter-coder reliability is generally considered the defining element for measuring the quality of a review or content analysis (Kolbe & Burnett, 1991:244). The data for the study were coded by the main researcher and one independent coder. Coder training was provided for the independent coder, using a codebook that gave clear descriptions of all the coding variables to be analysed. Since Krippendorff's alpha measures inter-coder agreement is considered "the most general agreement measure with appropriate reliability interpretations" (Krippendorff, 2004: 221), it was used as the measure of inter-coder reliability for the current study. A review of the various opinions concludes that reliability scores of 0.80 or higher are considered acceptable (Neuendorf, 2002:143), although Krippendorff (2004:241) maintains that variables with reliabilities of between 0.67 and 0.80 can also be considered for drawing provisional conclusions. The reliability values for the study are reported in Table 1.
Table 1 shows clearly that all the variables, except for one (statistical techniques), were above the 0.67 cut-off point, as suggested earlier. The wide variety of statistical techniques used in research may explain the lower reliability results. To address the low reliability scores, the researchers and the coder discussed the disagreements and recoded the data. This process was conducted for all the other variables; and all the corrected values were used in the final data set according to which the findings are reported.
4.2 Measurement and data analysis
Previous studies indicate that content analysis is the most commonly-used method for journal analyses. Content analysis is an unobtrusive, observational research method that evaluates the content of publications by identifying and categorising certain characteristics of messages in written or spoken material (Kolbe & Burnett, 1991:244; Donohue, 2007:252-253). Content analysis can have as its aim the quantification of data, or it can have a more interpretive (qualitative) aim, depending on the research question and the existing knowledge of the topic (Donohue, 2007:252-253). This study will focus on interpretation and induction; the approach used to analyse the content will be an editing approach.
The disadvantages of using content analysis should not be ignored. Coding sheets produce standardised information; this reflects the reductive nature of content analysis when extracting information from complex texts (Bryman & Bell, 2007:321; Colorado State University, 2009). The focus is on the measurable items, rather than on the true theoretical importance of each article; for this reason, the context in which the articles were written is not addressed.
A codebook was developed from the guidelines provided in previous studies (Baker, 2008; Hutchinson & Lovell, 2004). The data collection employed a coding sheet, which was used to capture the information relating to the inputs and outputs of the 257 SAJEMS articles. The coding sheet was pre-tested with a convenience sample of 10 articles, and the necessary alterations were made. The following variables were used in the final coding sheet for the study: (1) The number of authors; (2) author occupation; (3) institutional representation; (4) disciplines represented; (5) sample unit; (6) sampling design; (7) data-collection methodology applied; and (8) the statistical analytical techniques used.
5 Results
5.1 Input findings: authorship
5.1.1 Academic versus practitioner participation
The study showed that academic authors who are linked to an institution accounted for 86.7 per cent of those publishing in the SAJEMS during the period under review. A further 9 per cent of the studies were collaborative efforts between academics and practitioners. There were only eleven instances (4.3 per cent) where articles were authored solely by practitioners. Contributions by practitioners and collaborations showed a spike in 2005 (21 per cent) and 2008 (31 per cent), but decreased drastically to 6 per cent in 2010.
5.1.2 Institutional representation
Table 2 below shows the breakdown of the institutional representation of those authors publishing in the SAJEMS.
The best-represented institution is the University of Pretoria, the editorial home of SAJEMS, with 25.7 per cent of the cases contributed by this institution. The next-best represented South African institution is the North-West University (9.4 per cent), followed by the University of South Africa (7.3 per cent) and the University of the Witwatersrand (7.3 per cent). From Table 2, it is evident that the participation of academics from foreign institutions is higher than that of most local institutions. There were 45 instances of foreign participation, accounting for 15.6 per cent of cases, making foreign institutions the second most-published group in the SAJEMS.
5.1.3 Single versus multiple authorship
The study showed that 67 per cent of the articles published in the SAJEMS had more than one author. Of the 257 articles examined, only 85 (33 per cent) were single-authored articles. This brings us to the first research question: What were the practices when it comes to single and multiple authorship over the seven-year period?
Figure 1 below illustrates the number of authors in articles published in the SAJEMS in the seven-year period 2004 - 2010.
Single-authored studies accounted for 36 per cent of the articles published in the SAJEMS in 2004. This number dropped significantly in 2005, but recovered steadily during the following three years, to pass the 44 per cent mark in 2008. However, the percentage of single-authored articles dropped again to 26 per cent in 2009. Multiple authorship stayed above 60 per cent for the duration of the seven-year period, with the exception of 2008, when it dropped to 56 per cent.
5.2 Output findings: article content
5.2.1 Disciplines represented and research design used
Table 3 below shows the disciplinary representation in the SAJEMS during the seven-year period under analysis. It shows that the journal has remained true to its focus area, with economics and general business/ management being the two best-represented disciplines, accounting for 62 per cent of all articles published. For purposes of clarity, the category of 'general business/management' was created to include all business or management-related research that did not belong to any of the other categories. The third best-represented discipline was human resources (9.3 per cent), followed by marketing (7.4 per cent). Disciplines grouped in the 'other' category included statistics, information technology (IT) and operations.
The analysis of the research designs used showed that 61.5 per cent of the articles published in the SAJEMS during the period 2004 - 2010 employed quantitative research designs, while 33.5 per cent was allocated to qualitative research designs. Of all the research designs, only 5 per cent made use of mixed methods. These results are in line with the findings reported by Nilsson et al. (2007).
5.2.2 Sampling designs used
The findings on sampling indicate that the articles published in the SAJEMS employed predominantly non-probability sampling designs (40 per cent) (refer to Table 4). It should be noted that for almost half (127 articles) of the studies published in the SAJEMS, the use of sampling was not relevant to studies in the fields of economics and statistics, as well as a number of conceptual articles. It is a matter for concern that of those articles that did employ samples, almost a third did not specify their sampling design.
It must be noted that almost 24 per cent of the articles in the SAJEMS used a census. The most-used non-probability sampling method was convenience sampling (22.9 per cent), followed by purposive sampling (11.4 per cent). The most popular probability sampling methods were simple random sampling and stratified sampling. The second research question addresses whether some sample designs are preferred by certain disciplines. This will be answered below.
Figure 2 illustrates the preferences concerning sampling design used by the main disciplines represented in the SAJEMS. The field of general business overwhelmingly employs non-probability designs as their sampling approach. Marketing authors demonstrate a more extensive use of probability sampling designs, perhaps because of the importance of having representative studies when dealing with consumer and stakeholder groups. Finally, the great majority of economics articles employing a sample do not contain mention of which sampling design was used for obtaining their sample.
5.2.3 Data collection instruments
Table 5 below shows the breakdown of articles published in the SAJEMS during the seven-year period under review in terms of data collection. A total of 35 per cent of the articles employed secondary data, such as documents and/or databases, as their main source of data. These collection methods were used mostly by writers in economics, statistics and finance/ accounting. The next most-popular source of data was surveys, employed mostly by general business, marketing and human resources. Although the use of surveys showed a decline in 2005 - 2009, it increased again to 48 per cent in 2010.
5.2.4 Sample units
At this point, it may be relevant to clarify how sample units were coded. Sample units included only those cases where primary data were collected by using a sampling technique. All the cases that used secondary sources for their data analysis, such as documents and databases, were coded as 'other' units. The aim was thus to determine which target groups are sourced when researchers are directly involved in collecting the primary data. A total of 141 articles of the 257 (54.9 per cent) published in the SAJEMS during the period under review focused on a sample unit. Of these, 52 per cent examined professionals, while 16 per cent included adult consumers. Another 24 per cent made use of 'other' units that consisted mainly of documents and/or databases.
Students were the unit of investigation in only 10 of the articles (7 per cent), while children were included in only one article. This raises the question of whether some sample units are preferred by certain disciplines when collecting the primary data. This forms the third research question.
Figure 3 below displays the disciplinary preferences concerning the sample units employed in studies published in the SAJEMS during the period under review. It shows that all the disciplines (with the exception of the marketing field) prefer to focus on professionals. Marketing studies seemed to focus more on adults, while human resources was the only discipline that used children as a sample unit (only in one study). Economics used mainly secondary sources as input to test or verify economic models or mathematical formulas; and these were thus mostly classified as 'other' sample units, excluding the subjects of analysis of their secondary sources. If future studies investigate subjects of analysis in the economics field, it may be worthwhile analysing the type of analysis units (for example, households).
5.2.5 Statistical analyses conducted
Table 6 below shows the most commonly-used statistical analyses in articles published in the SAJEMS. Each statistical technique used was coded into one of six main categories, as identified by Diamantopoulus and Schlegelmilch (2000). The categories included: (1) descriptive statistics, such as means and frequencies; (2) comparison of groups (independent measures), such as chi-square, t-test and ANOVA; (3) measures of association, such as Spearman or Pearson correlations; (4) multivariate analysis (dependent), such as MANOVA, regression analysis and discriminant analysis; (5) multi-variate analysis (interdependent), such as factor analysis and cluster analysis; and (6) other (any technique not belonging to any of the previous categories).
Almost 37 per cent of the articles employed descriptive statistics; while 22 per cent of the articles used 'other' methods, which consisted mainly of economic/financial formulas. Only two articles in the 'other' category employed structural equation modelling. The third most-reported method was measures of association that investigate correlations. The least-used method was interdependent multivariate analysis, such as factor analysis.
The last research question: Are some statistical analyses preferred by certain disciplines? This question is discussed with the aid of Figure 4.
Figure 4 below shows the disciplinary preferences for the different disciplines published in the SAJEMS. It can be seen that descriptive statistics predominate, while economics is shown to have a strong reliance on 'other' analyses, which include economic/financial formulas. Economics also uses more dependent multivariate analysis than any of the other disciplines. It seems that human resources and general business make more use of independent measures when comparing groups than do marketing and economics. Marketing studies tend to make more use of measures of association, such as correlations between constructs.
6 Discussion and managerial implications
One of the main findings in the study was the decrease in co-authored articles between 2005 and 2008, with the flipside being an increase in single-authored articles. This finding is contrary to the global international trend identified by some researchers (Inkpen & Beamish, 1994; West, 2007). There is consensus that the quality of an article generally increases when it is done and written in collaboration with fellow researchers (Smart & Bayer, 1986; Yitzhaki, 1994). It has therefore been suggested that interdisciplinary research and international partnerships should be encouraged by editors to produce even more rich and diverse inputs in research and published findings (Kriek, Beaty & Nkomo, 2009).
Future authors should take note of this, and could also take into consideration that nowadays many research scholarships and grants (such as those from the NRF) seem to encourage interdisciplinary research.
The findings of this study have shown that academics were the main contributors of articles to the SAJEMS, with industry practitioners being in the minority (13.3 per cent). This finding concurs with the international research results reported by Hetzel (2000:702), and with those by West (2007:548). Brennan (2004:492) offers some thought on the low practitioner participation rate when he cautions that industry practitioners may not find journal contents applicable or relevant to the world of work. Other possible reasons for the low participation rate by practitioners could be a) the high entry barriers to getting an article published; b) the time-consuming process required by rigorous review processes; c) the lack of time to make extended efforts to write research articles; and/or d) little industry recognition for articles published.
The findings did, however, show an increase in participation in 2008, exceeding 31 per cent of article contributions for the first time; but these unfortunately decreased to 14 per cent in 2009 and to 6 per cent in 2010. It is worth noting that the focus and scope of the SAJEMS is not to encourage practitioner participation per se. However, the current contributions from industry practitioners suggest that there may be an opportunity for the editor to encourage practitioners to contribute to the journal. The SAJEMS may even want to consider publishing a special 'industry' edition. Practitioners may contribute to the scope of the SAJEMS by preparing new paths for debate on the operation and development of sustainable organisations and markets in Africa and abroad.
Malhotra and Peterson (2001:232) also argue that academic researchers should examine those substantive issues that are managerially relevant in order to close the gap between academic and industrial research.
The results show that foreign participation accounted for 15.6 per cent of cases, making foreign institutions the second most-published group, pointing towards a blurring of international borders. This higher foreign participation rate results in an increasingly cosmopolitan body of authors, a strength on which the SAJEMS could build. One would expect this number to increase in future with the SAJEMS supporting the 'open-access policy', whereby the journal's content is made freely available to the public in support of a greater global exchange of knowledge.
Previous research suggests that the institution housing an academic journal is more likely to be the main contributor of content to the journal (Inkpen & Beamish, 1994). The results in this study underscore this notion, in that the University of Pretoria, which was housing the journal over the period of study, was the main publishing institution in the journal. Furthermore, in line with the trend identified by Otchere (2003:220), there is also a correlation between the editor of the journal's home institution and the institutional representation in terms of the number of articles published in the SAJEMS. This probably shows that home institutions support their journals; and explains why the University of Pretoria has the highest incidence of articles published (excluding foreign institutions).
This study has revealed that non-probability sampling was most often used. This is supported by the findings by Poon and Rowley (2007). There is, however, some cause for concern, as such sample approaches do not allow for the results to be generalised to the whole population, thus limiting the results of the respective studies. Furthermore, such sampling approaches also limit the type of statistical tests that researchers can employ. This finding hopefully underlines the importance of sampling approaches and the limitations that non-probability sampling holds for future authors. On a positive note, many samples used professionals as sampling units. This is in line with the findings reported by both Scandura and Williams (2000), and West (2007).
The findings show that the most-used data collection technique was secondary in nature, more specifically the data extracted from documents and databases. The second most-used technique identified is that of conducting surveys, which is consistent with the findings by West (2007). However, the current study revealed that the survey method declined from 2005 to 2009, but increased again in 2010 to 48 per cent. This declining trend is in contrast with the results of Inkpen and Beamish (1994), and with those of West (2007). The reason for the recent decline in the use of surveys is not clear, although one may expect a link to the disciplinary fields represented over the years. One could also speculate and state that surveys might be losing their appeal because of 'survey fatigue'.
Many researchers have reported that survey non-response has been increasing. One of the reasons cited was the overexposure of surveys, which results in higher non-response rates, because of more refusals from individuals to participate (Steeh, 1981; Porter, Witcomb & Weitcer, 2004).
Some of the positive research practices concerning the articles published in the SAJEMS point to the variety of statistical techniques used across the disciplines. This concurs with the findings by Gupta et al. (2006). Economics, for example, uses more dependent multivariate analysis, whereas human resources and general business make more use of independent measures comparing groups. One is hopeful that South African researchers will continue to use (and increase their use of) more robust statistical analyses in their research.
7 Limitations and directions for future research
This study has focused on articles published during the seven-year period 2004 - 2010 in the SAJEMS. While sufficient literature exists to suggest that such a time frame is sufficient, a longer period would have provided more information to uncover discernible trends. It is therefore recommended that future studies incorporate a longer time period.
A further limitation might be that the study focused exclusively on one journal, the SAJEMS. While this may be useful to provide a review of a singular publication, it implies that the findings cannot be generalised to other economic and management-related publications in South Africa, or even to international publications. A possible direction for future research would be to conduct similar studies on other South African business journals in order to develop a better understanding of the state of economic and management research conducted in the country as a whole.
The findings showed a decline in the use of surveys. Future research may want to determine the correlation between data-collection techniques and different disciplinary fields. This may shed light on the declining trend in the use of surveys, and whether or not this is linked to a specific discipline.
The sample units investigated in this study focused on sampling, as used in the primary data collection. If future studies investigate subjects of analysis in the field of economics, it may be worthwhile analysing the type of analysis units (for example households) in terms of the secondary sources used.
In conclusion, this content analysis has revealed current research practices, as published in the SAJEMS; and has attempted to shed some light on the nature of research in the economic and management fields.
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Accepted: Junie 2013


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Cleaner coal, nuclear, solar, wind: these are some of the options for power generation to feed the U.S.'s electric power requirements. That need is expected to grow by 30 percent during the next 25 years, according to the Energy Information Administration, even with a slew of energy-efficiency measures and improvements to the grid infrastructure that delivers the electricity. But the primary source of electricity in 2034, according to a new projection from consulting firm Black & Veatch, will be natural gas. It is the fossil fuel with the least greenhouse gas impact on the atmosphere—burning it releases 43 percent less CO2 than burning coal—and looks set to increase its share of the electricity market, even with looming regulations to restrain climate-changing emissions. And there's this boost, too: new, vast reserves of natural gas found in places like the Marcellus Shale Formation, which stretches from West Virginia to New York State.
By 2034, according to Black & Veatch, nearly half of U.S. electricity will come from natural gas combustion turbines or combined-cycle units, whereas conventional coal-fired generation will shrink to just 23 percent (although few of the power plants will be shut down). Nuclear will grow to provide nearly 150,000 megawatts of electricity as renewables jump from just 54,000 megawatts today (excluding hydroelectric dams) to more than 165,000 megawatts in 2034.
Mark Griffith, head of Black & Veatch's power market analysis, spoke with ScientificAmerican.com about the U.S. electric grid's future configuration of energy sources.
[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]
You recently released a survey of electric utility CEOs. What did you find?
It's a very interesting survey. On the one hand, it illustrates there is a wide range of opinion in utilities on what needs to be done. Some people are skeptical of the need for carbon legislation and others think it's very important. Looking at the survey and what's going on in the industry, regardless of people's personal or political opinions they want to move towards a lower carbon footprint for the power sector. A lack of legislation right now in some corners creates more concern. It's hard to plan for the future if you don't know what that future is from a regulatory standpoint. Assuming something does happen, the survey supports the concept that utilities see nuclear as a reliable green technology, quite different from what people would have thought 10 years ago. Nuclear has been recast, at least that's how industry is looking at it.
Is there a future for coal?
There still seems to be a lot of interest in coal-fired generation for some time frame. Is there a future for coal? Overall, the answer is yes. We still have a certain amount of reliance on coal for a fairly long period of time in our baseline view of how things would unfold. How is that is possible—even with Waxman–Markey type legislation [the pending American Clean Energy and Security Act passed by the House] in place, which is what we assume in our baseline? By 2014, [under that legislation] there are standards you have to start meeting and they get stricter over time…. The concept of compliance is melded with the availability of offsets [reductions of greenhouse emissions elsewhere, such as trees in Alaska that are not cut down could count against coal-fired power plant emissions in Alabama] that are allowed for in the legislation. There is a presumption that all sectors including the electric utility industry will have access to some global market of offsets and can utilize them at some cost to them. That allows for compliance as the rules get tighter. You don't just make a fall-off–the-cliff type of change in year one of legislation like that. It is structured to allow for transition, some of that is in allocation of allowances in the early years…. It pushes you into a world of utilities needing to get in line with really reducing carbon emissions out in [the] 2030s rather than sooner. You don't have to shut down all the coal plants tomorrow. You can have a long-term strategy relying on reasonably priced offsets. With a bill like Waxman–Markey it's not this terrible thing that would force people to change behavior dramatically quickly. It does force behavior change, but it's more phased in over time.
You predict a big switch from coal to natural gas going forward, however. Why?
Even with demand-side management and energy efficiency, we still expect some growth in electricity demand. There's still a need for that type of dispatchable [sic] thermal [heat-producing] resource. Natural gas is the best candidate remaining.
That trend [of switching from coal to natural gas, which already exists] continues even with a moderate level of carbon emission prices. The natural gas stays as a competitive fuel. You're not going to build more conventional coal-fired power plants. We're at the tail end of the [coal] building cycle of what's going on now—and that's pretty much the end of that. You're waiting for a breakthrough on carbon capture and storage and, when that happens, then you could resume on coal. If not, I don't think we'll build anymore.
As carbon prices go up, it starts to become cost effective to back down less efficient coal units or higher-delivered-cost coal and run gas units more…. Gas is taking on a more significant energy role. You already have gas base load power plants [which provide a continuous supply of electricity] in the west. It's a bigger shift in the east, where there's been more reliance on coal-fired capacity. You get out to 2040–2050, you are retiring a lot of the coal fleet at some point. To the extent that you're still relying on thermal generation, you're relying on natural gas.
Do we have enough natural gas to meet that demand?
We're assuming that issues related to gas shales, environmental issues about groundwater, and the [general] use of water get solved. Those look like solvable issues that don't take a technological breakthrough. It's an expense that's incurred. I don't see gas shales having an insurmountable environmental problem that is expensive to fix. Of course, there are the unknown unknowns—you don't know. But there's certainly nothing that would indicate that…concerns…today for Marcellus and other [natural gas sites] will stop the development of gas shales. There's more and more capital flowing into that [because] it does take a lot of capital investment. Gas-shale wells produce quickly and die young. You have to keep on drilling.
What about nuclear?
Nuclear is something that utilities have just been avoiding because of the perception of the political unacceptability of it and the relatively high capital cost. If you can build a coal plant why would you bother to build a nuclear plant in the U.S.? It's the easier solution to do.
The loan guarantee program seems to be essential, given the magnitude of investment in a single one- or two-unit plant relative to the market capitalization of the companies that would own them. It's low cost relative to the amount of money [the government is] providing. A further expansion of the loan guarantee program seems the best way to encourage new nuclear. [But] you would expect there to be a lot of resistance—a wave of resistance to nuclear plants—just as there is currently resistance to coal plants. That battle is yet to come…. Can you even get another 200,000 megawatts of nuclear plants?
And renewables? Under your forecast, they grow from 5 percent of electricity supply to 13 percent, excluding hydropower. What makes that up?
It's primarily wind. That's the lion's share of it. There's a little geothermal in there and a little solar. There's been a lot of advancements in thin-film technology but the balance of [a solar power] plant [all the materials other than the photovoltaic cells themselves] is not getting any cheaper. The [solar] cells are getting cheaper, and it's not at all clear where the bottom for that is. I think there's some validity to the arguments made by folks from the [information technology] sector that say, look at the advances we've had. We've had the transistor, integrated circuits. It does look like there's some significant room for improvement [in photovoltaics] and it will have more dramatic advances than in coal or any thermal technology, which is already pushing against its theoretical limits. Eventually [photovoltaics] is going to break through. Solar is still kind of expensive as any utilities soliciting bids for renewables will tell you. It's not cheap yet.
Does that mean there will be more storage of electricity?
We don't have a lot in the baseline view. We haven't seen the economics of that pan out yet…. It's really hard to generate storage other than batteries, which are kind of expensive. It's really hard to generate the cost of pumped-hydro or compressed-air storage. Every situation for that is so unique. Some can come through but, bluntly, it's been difficult for new storage other than some isolated demonstrations.
Do your predictions for the electricity generation mix put us on a path to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050, as President Obama has called for?
It does not get us halfway there. [But] once again, it gets back to the amount of offsets that are available. This is an industry emitting 2.5 billion tons per year and would like to get down to 500 million to be in compliance. So are there two billion tons of offsets floating around? There's a lot of slop in the offset number. But you can pick up 500 million [in] offsets and have a decent build out of natural gas. Nuclear could fill a good piece of that role. There's a lot of uncertainty out there.
So what is Black & Veatch actually building today for clients?
We do a lot of things: coal overseas; we do a lot of work in water; gas plants; wind and renewables in general; biomass. We're doing a portfolio of different things…. New construction is going to be renewables or gas for us right now—if it's domestic.
Where Will the U.S. Get Its Electricity in 2034?
Renewables and natural gas may dominate the generation of electricity during the next three decades
Cleaner coal, nuclear, solar, wind: these are some of the options for power generation to feed the U.S.'s electric power requirements. That need is expected to grow by 30 percent during the next 25 years, according to the Energy Information Administration, even with a slew of energy-efficiency measures and improvements to the grid infrastructure that delivers the electricity. But the primary source of electricity in 2034, according to a new projection from consulting firm Black & Veatch, will be natural gas. It is the fossil fuel with the least greenhouse gas impact on the atmosphere—burning it releases 43 percent less CO2 than burning coal—and looks set to increase its share of the electricity market, even with looming regulations to restrain climate-changing emissions. And there's this boost, too: new, vast reserves of natural gas found in places like the Marcellus Shale Formation, which stretches from West Virginia to New York State.


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This Goss STE-409 Lever is a genuine Goss lever that is perfect for professional metal workers. This lever goes with TCA-10 acetylene torch assemblies, TCA-10 torches are fueled with acetylene; acetylene is a style of cutting that burns 2 combustible fuel gases to create the flame rather than air and 1 combustible, acetylene combined with oxygen from a separate tank for example. This style of cutting is perfect for either beginners or experienced metal workers due to increased control and added mobility of the acetylene setup. This Goss STE-409 Lever is protected by the outstanding Limited five year Goss Warranty. This Goss STE-409 Lever is backed by Goss; and Goss is a company that has been in business since 1940, and has been making torch equipment that customers can depend on.
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text:
Forest Floor (Galactic Halo Mohair)
Galactic Halo Mohair
70% Kid Mohair 30% Silk
459 yards/50 grams
Single ply/Lace weight
Due to the wonderful and interesting nature of hand dyed yarns, there is lots of room for variation within each colour way itself and for each base that the colour way is dyed on.
For each update, we include new photos of every available colour way in order to provide reference for how the yarns will appear in person. However, please note there is still a possibility that your yarn will not look 100% like the photo (monitor screens may vary). We promise to try our best to accurately portray each colour way in our photos.
As mentioned above, each skein of hand dyed yarn tends to be a bit different. If you are starting a project that requires more than one skein, in the same colour way, we recommend alternating skeins as you knit or crochet. If there is a colour way that you would like to have in a larger amount, please contact us at email@example.com and we would love to help you with that! We will specifically dye a larger quantity all at once for you.
Our yarn is dyed using acid dyes and should be hand washed/soaked in cold water using a wool wash (i.e. Soak, Eucalan, etc.) and laid flat to dry. Minor color bleeding may happen with some colour ways during their first soak. This is normal and even happens with commercially dyed yarns. If you have any questions or concerns, please email us at email@example.com.


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WASHINGTON (AP) ? The final weeks of 2011 were the economy's strongest since it appeared to be slipping toward recession in late spring.
Consumers spent more freely, factories made more goods, Americans stepped up travel and the auto industry enjoyed its best stretch of the year.
That's the bright picture the Federal Reserve sketched in a survey released Wednesday. It said all but one of its 12 banking districts experienced some growth from late November through the end of the year.
The Fed noted that some sectors of the economy, notably housing, remain weak.
But overall, the message was encouraging. It comes just six months after the economy nearly stalled under the weight of high food and gas prices and supply disruptions out of Japan that slowed U.S. manufacturing.
The economy and the job market have both picked up since then. And December may end up being the strongest month last year, an optimistic sign for the economy in 2012.
Employers added 200,000 net jobs last month, and the unemployment rate fell to 8.5 percent ? the lowest rate in nearly three years.
Consumer confidence rose. U.S. automakers reported having their two best months of sales for 2011 in November and December. And U.S. factories ended the year with their strongest month of growth since late spring, according to a closely watched gauge of the industry.
Most economists are predicting that the economy grew at an annual rate of 3 percent in the final three months of last year. That would be an improvement from the summer, when the economy expanded just 1.8 percent, and much better than the 0.9 percent growth in the first half of the year.
Still, the modest recovery is vulnerable to setbacks. Europe's debt crisis could lower demand for U.S. exports. Consumers could pull back on spending, especially if they continue to see little growth in wages.
And Congress could decide not to extend the Social Security tax cut or long-term unemployment benefits, both of which expire at the end of February. That would leave many households with less income, which would slow spending.
Consumer spending is important because it drives 70 percent of economic activity.
The Fed announced no new actions after its Dec. 13 meeting. But in the minutes from the meeting that were released last week, the Fed said it will start this month announcing four times a year how long it plans to keep short-term interest rates at existing levels.
The change is intended to reassure consumers and investors that they will be able to borrow cheaply well into the future. And some economists said it could lead to further Fed action to try to invigorate the economy.
The Fed's next meeting is on January 24 and 25.


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[187 U.S. 248, 249] This action was begun by the filing, on May 27, 1899, of a libel in the United States district court for the eastern district of New York, by Anton Mencke, the master of the British ship Benlarig, against a cargo of sugar that had just been delivered from the vessel, to recover an unpaid balance of freight due for conveying the sugar from Java to New York. The receivers of the cargo, the claimants in the action, had deducted from the freight the cost of lightering the cargo from the dock where it had been discharged to the claimants' refinery, which was above the Brooklyn Bridge. The ship had been ordered by the claimants to proceed directly to the refinery, but was unable to do so because the height of her masts was such that she could not pass under the bridge.
The district court, per Judge Thomas, entered a decree in favor of the libellant January 18, 1900. 99 Fed. 298. The claimants appealed to the United States circuit court of appeals for the second circuit, and that court on April 16, 1901, reversed the decree of the district court, and remanded the cause, with directions to dismiss the libel. 47 C. C. A. 222, 108 Fed. 89.
On May 13, 1901, a writ of certiorari was granted, and the cause was brought to this court. 181 U.S. 620 , 45 L. ed. 1031, 22 Sup. Ct. Rep. 946.
Messrs. J. Parker Kirlin, Charles R. Hickox, and Messrs. Convers & Kirlin for petitioner. [187 U.S. 248, 250] Mr. Wilhelmus Mynderse and Messrs. Butler, Notman, Joline, & Mynderse for respondents.
Mr. Justice Shiras delivered the opinion of the court:
Concerning the facts of the case there is no controversy.
The ship Benlarig was chartered under a charter party dated London, July 1, 1898, between Watson Brothers, her owners, and Erdmann & Sielcken, merchants of Batavia.
The vessel duly loaded a full cargo of sugar at Java, and then proceeded to Barbadoes. There she received orders to proceed directly to New York. This she did, arriving on or about April 14, 1899. Before or about the time of the arrival of the Benlarig at the port of New York the cargo of sugar was sold and transferred, with the accompanying bills of lading, by the owners and consignees thereof, to Arbuckle Brothers, sugar fefiners. The agents of the vessel gave notice to Arbuckle Brothers, on April 15, of the arrival of the vessel, and asked for orders for a discharging berth, mentioning that the vessel's mast, being in one piece, would not admit of her going under the Brooklyn Bridge. Arbuckle Brothers ordered the vessel to discharge at their refinery at the foot of Pearl street above the bridge. Subsequently it was agreed that the cargo should be discharged at the West Central pier, Atlantic dock, below the bridge, into lighters provided by Arbuckle Brothers, without prejudice to the rights of either party in respect to the payment of the cost of lighterage. This cost amounted to $1,466.12, which was paid by Arbuckle Brothers and deducted by them from the freight; and this suit is to recover the balance of the freight so deducted.
The clear height of the highest span of the Brooklyn Bridge above mean high water is 135 feet. At dead low water there were not more than 140 feet in the clear at the highest point.
The Benlarig has three steel masts, built up solid from the bottom to the top, and constructed of cylindrical steel plates, riveted together with internal angle iron braces. There was no way of taking any part of the masts down. The mainmast was 139 feet 10 inches above the deck; [187 U.S. 248, 251] the foremast 136 feet 8 inches above the deck; and the mizzenmast was 129 feet above the deck; and the deck was from 7 to 8 feet above the load line of the vessel. The ship, therefore, required 145 feet of clear space in order to pass underneath the bridge. This was more than 5 feet in the clear of the highest point of the bridge when the tide was at the lowest point of the ebb. An additional margin of several feet would have to be allowed for safe passageway; and at the lowest water the Benlarig could not pass under the bridge without cutting off some 8 to 10 feet of her steel masts.
The charter party provided that the Benlarig should load at Java and should proceed to Barbadoes, 'thence to Queenstown or Ealmouth (as directed by charterers or their agents), for orders to discharge, always afloat, either at a safe port in the United Kingdom or on the continent of Europe between Havre and Hamburg (both included), Rouen excepted, or at option of charterers to order vessel from Barbadoes to proceed to Delaware breakwater for orders to discharge at New York or Boston or Philadelphia or Baltimore, or so near the port of discharge as she may safely get and deliver the same, always afloat, in a customary place and manner, in such dock, as directed by charterers, agreeably to bills of lading.' Section 4 of the charter party further provided that 'all goods to be brought to and taken from alongside of the ship, always afloat, at the said charterers' risk and expense, who may direct the same at the most convenient anchorage; lighterage, if any, to reach the port of destination, or deliver the cargo at port of destination, remains for account of receivers, any custom of the port to the contrary notwithstanding.'
Four bills of lading were issued at the ports of loading, reciting the 'shipment of the sugar, and containing the identical conditions that the sugar was to be delivered in the like order and condition at the port of discharge as per charter party dated London, 1st July, 1898 (the dangers of the sea excepted), unto Messrs. Winter & Smillie as agents, or to their assigns, he or they paying freight for the said sugar as per charter party. [187 U.S. 248, 252] General average, if any, to be settled according to York-Antwerp rules, 1890. All other conditions and exceptions, negligence and Harter act clauses included, as per charter party above referred to, with average accustomed.'
The positions of the respective parties may be briefly stated thus:
The libellant's contention is that, under clause 1 of the charter party, the right of the charterers or their assigns to select the dock for the discharge of cargo was subject to the limitation that such dock must be one that was safe and suitable for the ship as well as for the cargo, and one to which the ship could proceed without hindrance by permanent obstacles, which she could not pass without being mutilated, crippled, or dismantled; and that, under clause 4 of the charter party, any lighterage necessary to deliver the cargo at the port of destination must be paid by the charterers.
The claimants contend that the discharging berth to which the Benlarig was ordered was safe for vessels of her class, and a customary place of discharge; and she should have proceeded there, or should have delivered her cargo there otherwise at her own expense; and that the lighterage clause of the charter party does not relieve the owners of the ship from their obligation to proceed to a designated dock above the bridge, and to there deliver the cargo.
Another suggestion made on behalf of the claimants, namely, that the Benlarig, though unable to pass under the bridge, might have reached the Arbuckle dock by sailing around Long Island, and then through the sound and Hell Gate to Brooklyn, should be first disposed of. It is, perhaps, sufficient to say that no such allegation appears in the claimants' answer. Nor did the claimants' assignments of error to the judgment of the district court raise any such question. Neither did the claimants, during the negotiations, make any such suggestion. Moreover, the district court and the circuit court of appeals agreed in the statement that 'all shipping experts called by the claimants testified that they never had heard of a ship from Java pursuing that course. It may therefore be concluded that such alternative was contrary to the expectations and under- [187 U.S. 248, 253] standing of all parties to this contract, or of any other contract for the carriage of sugar from Java.'
The question that remains is, upon which of the parties the expense of the lighterage should fall. The answer, we think, must be found in a proper construction of the contract between them.
It cannot be fairly claimed under the evidence that the expense that would have been occasioned to the owners of the vessel, if they had removed or taken down the mast, would have been trifling or inconsiderable. There was some evidence that, in a few instances, the topmasts of vessels had been taken down in order to permit them to pass under the bridge, and that the expense in each case was small. But those were cases of vessels with wooden masts, so constructed as to permit the topmast to be lowered. The Benlarig's masts were wholly of steel, and the testimony of her master was that if it became absolutely necessary to make the vessel pass beneath some obstruction lower than the top of the masts, the masts would either have to be cut or removed wholly out of the ship. What cost would have been caused by cutting or removing the steel mast does not appear. But the courts below concurred in regarding the mutilation or destruction of the ship's masts as a serious affair.
In such a condition of affairs we think that resort to lighterage was natural and reasonable and within the obvious and fair import of the terms of the charter party. The clause, which is claimed to give the charterers or their assigns the right to appoint the dock in which to discharge cargo contains conditions that the port must be safe, and that the vessel must discharge, always afloat, either at a safe port or so near the port of discharge as she can safely get. It would not be a just exercise of the right to select a dock in getting to which the vessel could not always be afloat or to which she could not safely get. A ship could not be said to be afloat, whether the obstacle encountered was a shoal or bar in the port over which she could not proceed, or a bridge under or through which she could not pass; nor could she be said to have safely reached a dock if required to mutilate her hull or her permanent masts. [187 U.S. 248, 254] Any doubt that might be felt as to this construction of the clause will be relieved by the express language of 4: 'All goods to be brought to and taken from alongside of the ship, always afloat, at the said charterers' risk and expense, who may direct the same to the most convenient anchorage; lighterage, if any, to reach the port of destination, or deliver the cargo at port of destination, remains for account of receivers, any custom of the port to the contrary notwithstanding.' Here, again, is recognized the right of the ship to be 'always afloat.' The anchorage directed must be the 'most convenient;' which must mean convenient as well for the ship as for the consignees; and, finally, if lighterage is necessary, either to reach the port or to deliver the cargo, the expense thereof is chargeable to the receivers of the goods, regardless of any local port customs.
We do not feel constrained to go into an extended consideration of the authorities cited in the briefs of counsel, but shall refer to two or three cases which, in some of their features, seem to be applicable.
The case of The Alhambra, L. R. 6 Prob. Div. 68, was where the charter party provided that the vessel should go 'to a safe port in the United Kingdom, . . . or as near thereunto as she could safely get, and always lay and discharge afloat. . . . Lighterage (if any) always at the risk and expense of the cargo.'
The charterers gave orders to the vessel to proceed to Lowestoft and there discharge the cargo. The average high water in that harbor was about 16 feet, and average low water about 11 feet. The master objected to discharging in Lowestoft harbor, notwithstanding that the purchasers of the cargo gave him notice that they were prepared at their own expense to lighter the vessel in Lowestoft roads sufficiently to enable her to lie always afloat in Lowestoft harbor, if necessary, should her draft of water so require. The vessel went to Harwich as the nearest safe port and there discharged the cargo. The owners of the cargo brought suit for breach of contract, and offered evidence to show that it was the custom of vessels which were too deep to enter the port of Lowestoft to discharge [187 U.S. 248, 255] a portion of their cargo in the roads outside, and that it could be done with reasonable safety. The cargo owners recovered a judgment, but the court of appeals reversed, that court holding that Lowestoft was not a safe port for the vessel within the meaning of the charter party, and that the custom shown by the charterers was inadmissible.
This case was cited with approval by this court in The Gazelle, 128 U.S. 474 , 32 L. ed. 496, 9 Sup. Ct. Rep. 139, where the charter party provided that the vessel should proceed from Baltimore 'to a safe, direct Norwegian or Danish port, as ordered on signing bills of lading, or as near thereunto as she can safely get, and always lie and discharge afloat.'
The charterers tendered to the master for signature bills of lading, ordering the vessel to the port of Aalborg, in Denmark, as the port of discharge, 'to be landed at Aalborg, or as near thereto as the vessel can safely get.' The master refused to sign the bills of lading for the reason that Aalborg was not a safe port. Aalborg is situated in Denmark on the Limiford inlet, about 17 miles from its mouth. Owing to a bar at the mouth of the inlet, there was a depth of water of only 10 or 11 feet. The draft of the Gazelle loaded was about 16 feet. The only place of anchorage for a vessel that cannot cross the bar is off the mouth of the inlet, where vessels were accustomed to discharge into lighters. Thereafter the master filed a libel for demurrage in the district court of the United States for the district of Maryland, whose judgment, sustaining the libel and dismissing the cross-libel of the charterers, was affirmed by the circuit court. This court said, through Mr. Justice Gray:
The charterers offered evidence to show that by the custom of trade between Baltimore and the Atlantic ports and the ports of Norway and Denmark, Aalborg was recognized as being, and understood to be, a safe, direct port of Denmark, within the meaning of the charter party. In respect to which this court said: 'Evidence of a custom to consider as safe a particular port, which in fact is not reasonably safe, would directly contradict the charter party, and would, therefore, be incompetent as matter of law.'
In Re An Arbitration between Goodbody and Balfour, Williamson, & Co. ( 4 Com. Cas. 119), the facts were that a cargo of wheat per the ship Vanduara had been sold in a contract containing the clause 'shipped . . . per Vanduara, sailed, or about to sail, as per bills of lading dated, etc ., . . . to any safe port in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, or to Havre, or to Dunkirk, or to Antwerp, calling at Queenstown, Falmouth, or Plymouth, for orders as per charter party, vessel to discharge afloat.' The vendees declined to take the papers on the ground that by the bills of lading the cargo was stated to have been shipped upon the Vanduara 'to discharge at a safe port in the United Kingdom, Manchester excepted,' and that such bills of lading did not comply with the contract for delivery in any safe port in the United Kingdom. It was found in the special case stated for the decision of the court that 'the Vanduara when loaded with the said cargo would have been unable to go up the Manchester ship canal to the Manchester docks, because the heads of her lower main and mizzenmasts would have been higher than the limit fixed by the canal company's regulations for passing under the Runcorn bridge.'
The vendors argued that the addition to the bills of lading of the words, 'Manchester excepted,' was immaterial, inasmuch as Manchester, in any event, was not a 'safe port' in the sense [187 U.S. 248, 257] of the bills of lading, as the ship could not reach it without cutting off or taking down her masts; and of that opinion were the divisional court and the court of appeal (5 Com. Cas. 59), A. L. Smith, L. J., in the latter court saying 'it is abundantly proved that Manchester, taken by itself, was not a safe port for this vessel, because it was found as a fact . . . that it would have been necessary to dismantle the ship to enable her to get under Runcorn bridge, which is the first bridge vessels going up the canal to Manchester have to pass.' Collins, L. J., was of the same opinion. And Vaughn Williams, L. J., said: 'On the findings of the last award it is perfectly plain that in a commercial sense the port of Manchester was not a safe port for the Vanduara to go to.'
This case is pertinent as holding that an overhead bridge which prevents access to the place designated for the discharge quite as effectively renders it unsafe for the ship as a sandbar or other obstacle under the water.
The view of the circuit court of appeals, that the construction put upon the charter party by the district court was within its letter but not within its spirit, because 'an application to novel circumstances of clauses intended for a different set of circumstances,' we cannot accept. We are unable to see anything in the undisputed facts of the case that warrants any other construction of the language employed than that suggested by its ordinary meaning.
The decree of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the decree of the District Court is affirmed, with interest thereon from the time of its entry.
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