No abstract

The adoption of e-commerce applications is promoted in the developing world as a systemic innovation offering producer firms new exchange mechanisms that enable them to compete on a more equal basis in world markets. It promises a radical shift in the way in which international buyers and sellers trade with one another. Empirical evidence obtained from researching leading garment exporting firms in South Africa suggests that B2B e-commerce is not as effective in reducing transaction costs or in opening up new global market opportunities as claimed by the "optimists". It has only marginally altered trading and business patterns between international buyers and sellers in the garment industry. The findings indicate that trading relationships in this sector are fostered over extended periods of time, depend on non-contract based activities and on complex information requirements and tend to be highly personalized. If B2B e-commerce implementation is to become more widespread, much greater attention will need to be given to the tight and complex interdependencies between buyers and sellers, technological opportunities and constraints, related institutional issues, and the specific characteristics and positioning of South African garment producers within global value chains.

AIn the hands of the South African government, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for development operates as a powerful discourse, which functions both as an ideology and a rhetorical tool. The South African government's discourse is framed in a rigid modernization schema informed by an overoptimistic understanding of the power and valence of ICT for poverty reduction and broad-based development. Government invokes new ICT as an autonomous and largely unassailable force. Over the last decade, a narrow and deterministic model of ICT for poverty reduction has become hegemonic as an ideal as well as a set of development practices, a model which operates to exclude alternatives. The view of technology as an external, autonomous force exerting an influence on society presents a limited set of options: (1) uncritical embracing of technological change or (2) defensive adaptation to it. If we are to attempt a more objective, detached analysis of ICT for development, then it would seem appropriate to move beyond the linear "cause and effect" model of technological determinism and explore alternative perspectives on society and technology.

The South African Menopause Society (SAMS) consensus position statement on menopausal hormone therapy (HT) 2014 is a revision of the SAMS Council consensus statement on menopausal HT published in the SAMJ in May 2007. Information presented in the previous statement has been re-evaluated and new evidence has been incorporated. While the recommendations pertaining to HT remain similar to those in the previous statement, the 2014 revision includes a wider range of clinical benefits for HT, the inclusion of non-hormonal alternatives such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and serotonin noradrenaline reuptake inhibitors for the management of vasomotor symptoms, and an appraisal of bioidentical hormones and complementary medicines used for treatment of menopausal symptoms. New preparations that are likely to be more commonly used in the future are also mentioned. The revised statement emphasises that commencing HT during the 'therapeutic window of opportunity' maximises the benefit-to-risk profile of therapy in symptomatic menopausal women.

No abstract