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Umunthu, Covid-19 and mental health in Malawi
No full textThis paper investigates the centrality of Umunthu in mental health conception and treatment in Malawi. Umunthu is an African philosophical worldview which stresses that an individual is human as they relate to others, as in the saying I am because we are. Its communitarian approach contrasts with a predominantly western individualistic worldview; I think therefore I am. There are spelling variations of the word across Bantu languages, including bomoto (Congo), gimuntu (Angola); umunthu (Malawi); vumutu (Mozambique); vumuntu, vhutu (South Africa); humhunu/ubuthosi (Zimbabwe); bumuntu (Tanzania); and umuntu (Uganda). Literature shows that if embraced and advocated for, Umunthu plays a positive and influential role in mainstreaming and dealing with mental health issues in communitarian societies where the Umunthu ideals are part of the social fabric. However, in the case of Covid-19 and mental health in Malawi, the paper argues that Covid-19 preventive measures, particularly self-isolation when Covid-19 positive; maintaining social distance at all times; and reducing the number of people gathered at funerals, challenge Umunthu ideals, which have in the past been crucial in reducing stress, trauma and anxiety. This original paper bases its arguments on empirical data collected in a study conducted in Mangochi, Blantyre, Karonga and Lilongwe. Based on the study's findings, the paper highlights that although Covid-19 preventative measures have been globally embraced, it is also a limiting factor in the quest for mental health in societies with communitarian value systems.Yamikani Ndasauka was supported by National Research Foundation [COV19200603527586]
Reconstructing The Development Of The Bantu Final Vowels
No full textSo-called Final Vowel (FV) morphemes are an integral part of the verbal inflectional morphology of most Bantu languages, though relatively little attention has been paid to their historical development in the context of the overall Bantu verbal system. A small set of FVs is reconstructed as appearing at the end of verbs and, along with other morphemes, they play a role in encoding tense, aspect, mood, and polarity. This chapter reconsiders the reconstruction of the Bantu FV system, with the goal of arriving at a better understanding of what the situation may have been like in Proto-Bantu (PB) with respect to these morphemes and how a system of inflectional marking of this kind could have developed. Data is drawn from languages of the north-western Bantu area which have not previously been systematically examined with respect to reconstruction of the FVs. On the basis of data from these languages, it appears that the right edge of the Bantu verb was a more active site for the formation of new morphology than suggested by previous studies and that the standard reconstructions of the FVs may represent a simplification of a more complex PB situation
Automating the Process of Generalization
No full textAs various scholars have noted, the behavior of potentially any system can be represented in terms of network graphs called state spaces. Assuming that machine learning solutions can be represented as the automation of cognitive processes, it is noteworthy that in the case of the cognitive system it has been hypothesized that all thoughts (concepts and the reasoning that connect them) can be represented in terms of one proposed state space. In the case of the physical world up to and including the entire physical universe it is hypothesized that systems can be represented in terms of another proposed state space. Biological and other systems have also been hypothesized to be representable this way. Through simple, easily verifiable geometrical arguments, this paper explores how general problem-solving ability relates to the volume of this cognitive state space an intelligent system is able to navigate, or the volume it can navigate in the state space of any system the intelligent system might be targeted at solving problems about. Through those same simple geometrical arguments in state space this article explores why modeling problems in state space, in addition to increasing the ability to generalize until it spans the entire state space, is predicted to lead to an exponential increase in general problem-solving ability for intelligent systems, and this paper explores the patterns through which this increase in ability to generalize have been automated so that they can be more broadly replicated to increase narrow problem-solving ability in a sufficient range of areas for an exponential increase in general problem-solving ability to be achieved
A Growing Smile and a growing demise: the diminishing value of Damietta furniture making
No full textUsing the Growing Smile framework, we argue in this article that the struggles of manufacturers in the Egyptian furniture industry is part of a historical and structural process characterized by a drop in value added by the manufacturing processes, giving way to higher value added by the pre- and post-manufacturing processes. We found that manufacturers surviving this trend are the ones who can integrate advanced design and marketing techniques in their processes, and in some cases outsource the manufacturing process altogether, while focusing instead on design and marketing. These are large players who increasingly operate and employ workers from Egypt's large metropolises, namely Cairo. This causes the redistribution of value to Cairo-based business and professions at the expense of the provincial city of Damietta. Internationally, with increased automation, more of the value is captured by the manufacturers of IP-heavy machines at the expense of traditional craftsmen. These trends have serious repercussions on an increasingly industrialising Global South, prominently among which is a rapidly falling employment-to-population ratio
Reconstructing Suffixal Phrasemes In Bantu Verbal Derivation
Get PDFThis chapter introduces the notion of suffixal phrasemes to designate the
semantically non-compositional complexes of suffixes which emerged across time and space in Bantu to renew morphology in several verbal derivation categories. It is shown that such verb derivational phrasemes can be reconstructed to different ancestral stages as far back as Proto-Bantu (PB) and possibly beyond. The oldest instance of such a suffixal phraseme in Bantu is the causative *-ɪdi, which is reconstructed to PB as the phraseologisation of applicative *-ɪd and the short causative *-i, in addition to the previously reconstructed simplex PB causative suffixes *-i and *-ic. The Bantu ancestral language that emerged after the North-Western Bantu branches had split off created a new causative marker, i.e. *-ɪki, through the non-compositional reanalysis of neuter *-ɪk and short causative *-i. Around the same stage, the long passive suffix *-ɪbʊ rose as an aggregation of the middle suffix *-Vb, well-attested in North-Western Bantu, and the short PB passive suffix *-ʊ. Much younger but still of considerable time-depth are reciprocal phrasemes produced out of a complex of PB associative/reciprocal *-an preceded by either causative *-ɪdi (i.e. *-ɪzyan) or intensive *-ang/*-ag/*-ak (most often *-angan). These causative, passive and reciprocal suffixes are all built on a final element that goes back to at least PB and whose semantics and syntax it copied. Other suffixal phrasemes rather adopted the role of their initial element, while stills others developed idiosyncratic functions in which the input of their historical components can only be inferred
Coloniality, (Black) Theology and Liberation: Reflections on John Chilembwe
Get PDFThis paper focuses on the influence of Black Liberation theology on the development work of the Providence Industrial Mission (PIM) in colonial times. It draws from previous research as well as new developments like the growing public interest in Chilembwe such as we saw in July 2021 when it was announced that the “Antelope”, a sculptural restaging of a photograph of Chilembwe and a British missionary in which the artist “elevated Chilembwe and his story, revealing the hidden narratives of underrepresented people in the history of the British Empire in Africa and beyond.” Among the narratives that I would like to reflect on in this paper is the less spoken about link between Chilembwe’s theology and that of what we can term “early forms” of Black theology. In the context of this paper, I argue that early forms of Black theology influenced Chilembwe’s struggle against colonisation in the country now known as Malawi
The consequences of non-adherence to medicines
Get PDFOne of the main barriers to reaping the full benefits of prescription medications is known to be poor or non-adherence to treatment regimens. Many prescription drugs significantly lose effectiveness when patients don't follow the recommended treatment plan. Adherence problems are grave difficulties that have terrible effects on the patient and the healthcare system under discussion. Therefore, to stop the situation from getting worse, patients, healthcare professionals, and other stakeholders must work together
Using General Collective Intelligence to Optimize the Process of Evolutionary Optimization
Get PDFIn the study of logic, state spaces have been used to define semantic representations of theories for the purpose of abstract problem-solving. This paper explores the use of a variety of state space (a functional state space) defined through the emerging technique of Human-Centric Functional Modeling, in a thought experiment to model all information required in the process of problem-solving using evolutionary computing, and all the information required to index evolutionary computing solutions and the problems they are meant to solve, so those problems and solutions can be uniquely identified and compared, in order to move towards automation of the process of evolving such evolutionary computing solutions by applying such solutions to the design of the solutions themselves
Human-Centric Functional Modeling and Defining Metrics for the Function and Level of Consciousness
Get PDFHuman-Centric Functional Modeling provides a methodology for defining the properties of systems. This short paper explores its application to defining a representation of, and metrics for, both impaired consciousness as well as the heightened levels of consciousness sometimes referred to as “enlightenment” in various traditions
A lower bound for length of addition chains
Get PDFIn this paper we show that the shortest length (n) of addition chains producing numbers...
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