Search Results (90)

Research on school leadership preparation and development on the African continent has been growing significantly in recent years. A close examination of this literature reveals a deficit bias that presents leadership preparation as inadequate leading to perceptions of ineffective leadership practice. In this literature, leadership preparation is understood as the formal training of school principals and those who hold similar positions of authority. The paper argues that this conception is premised on Western models that center individualism and the hierarchy of leadership and is incongruent with the socio-cultural realities within the African context. Within this contextual dissonance, leadership learning is narrowly conceptualized and is thus constraining to the applied context. The paper adopts a critical post-structural analysis to make a case for a dialogical and transformative approach to leadership preparation and development. It draws upon Global South philosophies of Paulo Freire—a South American philosopher whose approach to leadership development centers dialogue, critical consciousness and continuous engagement; Sophie Oluwole, a Nigerian philosopher from the Yoruba tribe, whose philosophy centers cultural acceptance that promotes dialogue and continuous criticism; and the Ubuntu-centered philosophy of Mogobe Ramose, which encourages critical dialogue between knowledge systems. The constant engagement and dialogue espoused in the three philosophical stances allow for contestation and fluidity that serve as bedrocks for healthy and trusting environments for leadership development, permitting a more nuanced understanding of how leadership is learned. The proposed approach politicizes leadership learning and recognizes it as contextual, collectivist and contested. The paper thus advances a radical way of thinking about school leadership preparation and development, which arguably holds better prospects for leadership that is more responsive, inclusive, and sustainable. Full article

Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) are central to the industrial fabric of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Yet, they confront increasing demands to implement sustainability practices originating from institutional contexts markedly different from their own. Existing research has tended to neglect the cultural and institutional negotiations inherent in this process, often framing sustainability adoption as a technical or compliance-oriented exercise rather than as a multifaceted cultural adaptation. This study proposes and empirically examines the concept of sustainability acculturation—the process by which firms align global sustainability norms with local business cultures. Drawing on Institutional Theory, the Resource-Based View, and Berry’s Acculturation Model, we present a context-specific framework, tested using a sequential explanatory mixed-methods approach: survey data from 284 manufacturing SMEs across six SSA countries, followed by 24 semi-structured interviews. Structural equation modeling reveals that international market pressure and owner–manager values are direct drivers, whereas local regulatory pressure exhibits only a weak association with deep cultural integration. Managerial commitment and organizational learning mediate these relationships, while Ubuntu values enhance social sustainability integration, and institutional voids diminish regulatory effectiveness. The model accounts for 57% of the variance in sustainability acculturation. Findings show that SSA SMEs employ distinct acculturation strategies—Integration, Assimilation, Resilient Adaptation, and Decoupling—shaped by the interplay of external pressures, internal capabilities, and contextual conditions. The study underscores the importance of culturally attuned, context-specific interventions for sustainable industrial development in SSA. Full article

This article examines the assumed dichotomy between the Black church and the juke joint within African American cultural discourse. Often portrayed as moral opposites—one sacred and the other secular—this study argues that such a binary reflects a Eurocentric interpretive framework rather than the actual historical realities of Black communal life. Through cultural and historical analysis, the article asserts that both institutions originated from similar conditions of racial exclusion and served as complementary spaces that nurtured African American identity, resilience, and community connections. Using the film Sinners as a key cultural text, the study explores how contemporary media narratives complicate rigid distinctions between sacred and secular Black spaces, identities, music, and spirituality. The character Sammie illustrates the permeability between these spaces, embodying a cultural logic where spiritual refuge and expressive release coexist. The analysis places this view within the African philosophical concept of Ubuntu, which emphasizes relational identity and the inseparability and oneness of the Black community. Drawing on the scholarship of James H. Cone, the article also shows that spirituals and blues share roots in African diasporic musical traditions. These traditions demonstrate the deep interconnection between religious and secular forms of Black expression. Ultimately, the study concludes that the Black church and the juke joint should be understood not as opposing institutions but as interconnected cultural spaces that collectively sustain African American spiritual, social, and artistic life. Full article

Scholars across disciplines are urging a rethinking of human–nature relationships beyond anthropocentrism, but these ideas remain difficult to convey to broader audiences and to implement in environmental management practices. This study analyses the design and performance of a serious game (used in 12 sessions with 99 participants in total) developed to encourage participants to reflect on modes of attention and relationships with non-humans in an everyday environment. The game draws on storytelling and art-based approaches to guide players through a thought experiment in which humans and non-humans can gradually communicate and coordinate. A series of game features have been designed to challenge players’ perception of ownership, stakeholders and agency beyond humans. In the sessions played, players initially competed against each other. The revelation, throughout the game, of non-humans’ presence in the landscape, and among the game’s characters themselves, led players to cooperate. Yet they mostly cooperated among human characters to address the needs of non-humans, but they rarely engaged directly with the non-human characters themselves through voluntary interactions. Engaging participants to act as, and interact with, non-humans through role-play allows questioning established interpretations and power dynamics in land or resource management. It offers an imaginative yet embodied experience for exploring what happens if non-humans are treated as active partners with whom we can directly communicate and coordinate to address environmental challenges. Full article

Ensuring ongoing endpoint security compliance across diverse, hybrid IT infrastructures poses a continual operational challenge, especially in enterprise Linux systems, where manual verification methods are difficult to scale and prone to inconsistency. This study offers an empirical assessment of an automated methodology for monitoring endpoint compliance and security, applied within a mid-sized IT consulting firm. The suggested methodology incorporates automated compliance scanning, malware detection, endpoint verification, and remediation utilising open-source technology, all orchestrated through centralised automation and reporting systems. The evaluation follows an observational comparative methodology, contrasting manual compliance operations with automated enforcement across 60 Linux endpoints (30 Fedora and 30 Ubuntu systems) over two equivalent eight-week operational periods. The analysis emphasises operational parameters such as administrative workload, configuration uniformity, and audit preparedness. The findings demonstrate that automation reduced manual compliance-related tasks by roughly 70–80%, enhanced configuration consistency across endpoints through continuous enforcement, and enabled automated production of audit-ready compliance reports. The findings provide concrete evidence that operational security automation can markedly improve endpoint compliance management in business Linux and hybrid IT environments. Full article

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has transitioned from a specialized research area to a ubiquitous socio-technical infrastructure influencing sectors from healthcare and law to manufacturing and defense. In tandem with its transformative promise, AI has created an exponentially expanding ethics literature questioning, fairness, transparency, accountability, and justice. This review synthesizes publications and key policy developments between 2019 and 2025, bringing sectoral discourses together with cross-cutting frameworks. Grounded in a systematic scoping review methodology, we frame the field along four meta-dimensions: trust and transparency, bias and fairness, governance & regulation, and justice, while we investigate their expression across diverse sectors. Special attention is dedicated to healthcare (patient trust and algorithmic bias), education (integrity and authorship), media (misinformation), law (accountability), and the industrial sector (data integrity, intellectual property protection, and environmental safety). We ground abstract principles in concrete case studies to illustrate real-world harms and mitigation strategies. Furthermore, we incorporate pluralistic ethics (e.g., Ubuntu, Islamic perspectives), environmental ethics, and emerging challenges posed by Generative AI and neuro-AI interfaces. To bridge theory and practice, we propose an operational governance framework for organizations. We contend that success involves transitioning from principles toward ethics-by-design, pluralistic governance, sustainability, and adaptive oversight. This review is intended for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers who need a comprehensive and actionable framework for navigating the complex landscape of AI ethics. Full article

Scientists estimate that humanity has exceeded seven of nine planetary boundaries, threatening the entire planet with potentially catastrophic consequences for all species. We therefore have a moral imperative for future generations and other species to return to the safe side of those boundaries. Threats to these boundaries take the form of social dilemmas, defined as situations in which individuals acting in their own interest undermine collective welfare, which can only be solved through cooperation. Western economic theory has conditioned us to believe that humans are inherently selfish. This assumption has led economists, scientists, and policymakers to increasingly pursue market-based solutions to conservation approaches, which have yielded limited success. In contrast, this article argues that humans are inherently cooperative. We employ Multi-Level Selection Theory (MLS) to depict the evolutionary advantages of cooperation and to define morality as putting the group ahead of the individual. We examine two examples of MLS in action: Territories of Life (TOL) and Ubuntu. The paper provides guidance for pathways of Ecozoic governance, planning, and restoration. Applied in a Western context in Burlington, Vermont, the philosophies hold true, showing that social norms and group identity already shape ecological behavior in Burlington residents’ lawn care practices. Ultimately, providing an alternative economic model built on these ethical foundations, we introduce the Neighbor’s Goodwill that reframes social dilemmas in a game theory context. The Neighbor’s Goodwill demonstrates how loyalty, reciprocity, and social belonging alter payoff structures. This research is founded on the fact that humans are inherently social and tend to make decisions in the interest of the whole group over their own. Full article

South African universities remain shaped by unresolved colonial inheritances and a deepening neoliberal turn that privileges measurable outputs, competition, and narrow definitions of merit. Within this landscape, Black academics and students often encounter institutional cultures that regulate belonging and constrain transformation. While accounts of the neoliberal university have been richly documented, less attention has been given to mentorship as an everyday institutional practice through which such regimes are reproduced and contested, particularly within professional training contexts. This paper offers a State of the Academy Address through the perspectives of two Black early-career clinical psychologists in academia. Drawing on collaborative autoethnography, a qualitative approach in which researchers use their own lived experiences as data to examine broader cultural patterns, and reflexive thematic analysis (a method of identifying and interpreting patterns of meaning across qualitative data) of structured reflective dialogues, we examine how emerging scholars attempt to re-make academic life through refusal and care. Two themes are presented: promoting mentorship while rejecting gatekeeping, and the tension between knowledge production and scholarly development under metric-driven performativity. The paper appreciates the notions of relationality and relational ethics, which are central to Ubuntu philosophy. Additionally, by centering a Freirean commitment to critical consciousness and empowerment, we argue that mentorship can function as an everyday agency that challenges exclusionary traditions, even as output pressures narrow scholarly formation and deepen the vulnerability of early-career academics. We conclude with implications for policy and practice across departmental, institutional, and sector levels, including the formal recognition of mentorship in workload models, protections for early-career academics against exploitative workload practices, and broader promotion and performance criteria that recognise relational labour, collaborative scholarship, and community-engaged knowledge production. Full article

This study investigats both emerging and existing ethical issues associated with the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in Africa, a region characterised by unique socio-economic and cultural complexities. Even though AI adoption is rapidly transforming and delivering substantial benefits in sectors such as healthcare, finance, agriculture, education, industry, and governance, its implementation still raises ethical concerns. These ethical issues include digital colonialism, algorithmic bias, job displacement, limited infrastructure, data scarcity, linguistic diversity, and the risk of imposing foreign values that may undermine indigenous knowledge and social cohesion. Grounded in Afro-communitarianism and stakeholder theory, which emphasises communal values such as Ubuntu and cooperative engagement among stakeholders, this desk-based research identifies these major challenges and introduces a culturally grounded framework for responsible AI adoption in Africa. The framework calls for stronger governance, capacity building, collaboration among stakeholders, and tailored strategies across multiple stakeholders to ensure AI supports Africa’s inclusive and sustainable progress. Full article

Long-read sequencing technologies, particularly those developed by Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT), have transformed genome sequencing by enabling high-resolution analysis of complex microbial communities. Among ONT devices, the MinION remains affordable and scalable for low-resource settings. However, its limited onboard computing power constrains high-accuracy basecalling and limits its ability to address inherent sequencing errors effectively. To overcome these constraints, we assembled a streamlined in-house workflow that integrates at least five MinION devices with a GPU-powered workstation running Ubuntu 20 and MinKNOW. Rather than a new sequencing platform, this “home-made GridION” represents a practical integration of existing ONT devices with dedicated computing resources. At its core is a live basecalling pipeline capable of handling both FAST5 and POD5 file formats. The system supports high-throughput basecalling using Guppy on FAST5 files as well as Dorado on POD5 files, ensuring compatibility with both legacy and current ONT data standards. File monitoring is automated via inotifywait, enabling immediate detection of new files, real-time basecalling, and organized output of FASTQ batches. Beyond basecalling, we implemented an automated downstream pipeline for metagenomic analysis, enabling taxonomic profiling and detection of antimicrobial resistance genes (ARG). Tested on 10 hospital wastewater samples, the workflow generated at least 500,000 reads per sample within six hours, which were analysed for antimicrobial resistance gene abundance. This demonstrates its potential as an open, scalable hardware/software platform that extends the utility of MinION sequencing for microbial genomics in resource-limited environments. The setup can channel as many MinIONs as available USB ports, with a ratio of 1 MK1D for 1 TB of storage capacity on the associated computer. Full article

There is great interest in school leadership models, with their potential to explain and interpret leadership structures and processes. Models developed in the Global North, notably in the UK and USA, are now widely cited by scholars, policy-makers, and practitioners in many countries, including in the Global South. This article reviews the origins and development of these models, and their application in African and Asian contexts. It also examines the emergence of indigenous models, notably Ubuntu, Confucianism, and Islamic theory. The problem under scrutiny is why indigenous models appear to be neglected in the Global South, in favour of international models. These specific approaches are chosen because they have wide applicability, beyond nation-states. The paper stresses the importance of context and offers links between global and indigenous models. The topic is important and relevant given the growing concern about post-colonial influences in many Global South countries. Full article

Introduction: Early HIV replication in the gastrointestinal tract plays an important role in HIV pathogenesis. We have followed the onset of the acquired immune deficiency disease (AIDS) pandemic and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection from its recognition in the US. Patients and Methods: We followed 34 adult HIV positive Veterans on cART comparing colon Innate Immune System (InImS) expression of a Paneth cell product (p87; the denominator) and blood ferritin (the numerator) to derive the FERAD ratio, and p87 expression by immunohistochemistry available in some of our HIV patients and compare the expression to 2252 without HIV. Stool and colonoscopically obtained tissue specimens were run in a p87 ELISA and immunohistochemistry for both fixed and native antigens, using the Adnab-9 antibody. Results: There were no significant differences in demographics aside from lower BMI in HIV patients (24.93 ± 6.30 vs. 28.0 ± 6.13 kg/m²) p < 0.0001. Native p87 antigen was elevated in HIV patients compared to controls in the ascending, transverse, and descending colon (0.794 ± 0.890 vs. 0.170 ± 0.201 respectively; p < 0.000004; 1.062 ± 0.730 vs. 0.202 ± 0.377 respectively; p < 0.000003; and 0.611 ± 0.182 vs. 0.174 ± 0.251 respectively; p < 0.0009), respectively; and Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) detection was higher in HIV patients (84.6% vs. 36%; p < 0.0002). We also ran these assays in cancer patients for comparison. Conclusions: Colonic inflammation as expressed by p87, a Paneth cell product, is significantly elevated in HIV patients and likely represents continued HIV activity leading to inflammation. Full article

This work presents the design and experimental validation of a 2 × 2 MIMO communication system assisted by a directly modulated analog radio-over-fiber (A-RoF) fronthaul, targeting low-complexity connectivity solutions for underserved/remote regions. The study details the complete end-to-end architecture, including a wireless access segment to complement the 20-km optical fronthaul link. The system is implemented on an software defined radio (SDR) platform using GNU Radio 3.7.11, running on Ubuntu 18.04 with kernel 4.15.0-213-generic. It also employs adaptive modulation driven by real-time signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) estimation to keep bit error rate (BER) close to zero while maximizing throughput. Performance is characterized over 20 km of single-mode fiber (SMF) using coarse wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) and assessed through root mean square error vector magnitude (${\mathrm{EVM}}_{\mathrm{RMS}}$), throughput, and spectral integrity. The results identify an optimum radio-frequency drive region around $-16$ dBm enabling high-order modulation (e.g., 256-QAM), whereas RF input powers above approximately $-10$ dBm increase ${\mathrm{EVM}}_{\mathrm{RMS}}$ due to nonlinearity in the RF front-end/low-noise amplifier (LNA) and direct modulation stage, forcing the adaptive scheme to reduce modulation order and throughput. Over the optical-power sweep, when the incident optical power exceeds approximately $-8$ dBm, the system reaches ∼130 Mbps (24-MHz channel) with ${\mathrm{EVM}}_{\mathrm{RMS}}$ approaching ∼1%, highlighting the need for careful joint tuning of RF drive, optical launch power, and wavelength allocation across transceivers. Finally, the integrated access link employs diplexers for transmitter/receiver separation in a 2 × 2 configuration with 2.8 m antenna separation and low channel correlation, demonstrating a 10 m proof-of-concept range and enabling end-to-end spectrum/EVM/throughput observations across the full communication chain. Full article

Spirituality and religion are underrecognized components of mental health and substance use (MHSU) care for youth of African descent. This study explores the dual role of spirituality and religion in influencing the help-seeking behaviors, recovery journeys, and care outcomes of youth of African descent aged 18 to 25 residing in Nova Scotia, Canada. Drawing on findings from a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) funded community-based study using mixed methods, including interviews, focus groups, and arts-based approaches, the research highlights both the supportive and ambivalent roles spirituality plays in MHSU care. Participants shared themes such as spiritual reflection as a turning point, the assurance of a higher power, the culturally responsive support of faith-informed providers, and the significance of meditation and unseen connection as healing tools. While the narratives of research participants attested to the role of spiritual and religious practices in offering a sense of belonging, hope, and culturally aligned care, they may also reinforce stigma or act as a barrier to accessing formal MHSU services. These themes were derived from qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews with 60 youth participants. Through the lens of Ubuntu and Afrocentric paradigms, this paper calls for a more holistic and culturally inclusive approach to care, one that respects or honors the spiritual and communal lives of youth of African descent. It also reinforces the importance of training MHSU care providers to recognize, respect, and integrate spirituality as a legitimate component of wellness and recovery for help-seeking youth of African descent. Full article

Clarke provides a critical analysis of Pentecostalism as a tool for attaining the theological and political objectives of Pan-Africanism. However, this seems to suggest that, at least, African Pentecostals and African Pentecostal researchers may not be aware of the African Union’s (AU) Agenda 2013, or, at worst, they find no interest in engaging with Agenda 2063 if they are aware it exists. Using religion and politics—particularly Pentecostalism and politics—as a framework, this article notes that there are some points of convergence between their praxis and some of the seven aspirations of Agenda 2063. It addresses this phenomenon by using Mzondi’s Ubuntu Pentecostalism as a theological lens to reflect on how some of the actions and praxis of African Pentecostals relate to the African Union’s Agenda 2063. Ubuntu Pentecostalism holds to a holistic view of life and embraces William Seymour’s Pentecostalism, influenced by an African worldview, and either embraces or denounces ancestral veneration. The latter form of Ubuntu Pentecostalism is used in this article and placed alongside Pan-Africanism and African identity to provide a perspective on the third and fifth aspirations of the African Union’s Agenda 2063. The article further shows that (a) although African Pentecostals may not be aware of or do not bother to engage with the AU’s Agenda 2063, (b) their praxis and actions either support or contradict the third and fifth aspirations discussed in the article. Full article