Facinating Data Analysis

Gapminder is a fascinating tool taking the concept of graphs several steps further by using computer multimedia.

The graph below is available online and shows the relationship between life expectancy and average individual income.

from Gapminder
(click image for full story online)

 

This graph instead of showing only the income vs expectancy data points also shows the geographical location (by the colour of the point) and the population (by the size of the point) of the country's datapoint.So its easy to see that Africa has low income and associated low life expectancy and also that some have much lower life expectancies than the rough trend line. Labeling the points is revealing, Southern African countries amonst are those that lie below the line while Muslem countries suxh as Comores and Senegal are

Then one is able to look at these points in time to see changes and even track the changes as a line connecting successive years

or as a video

How Time Passes

Here in my second life I needed some documents for an application and found this 30 plus year old certificate!

Makes one think back.

Queuing for Government Services!

Why do we as South Africans, accept to stand in queues like this? and only complain to one and other about how bad things are.

Batho Pele - Putting people first?

To me the most revealing thing about Batho Pele is its website!

While Batho Pele is a process for the user of government services, the website gives no way of addressing the system in writing.

The INTERNET contact form specifically states

"due to high volume of mail, we're not always able to provide a personal response"

Submissions to the the form resulted in no response after 3 days, although a specific request was made to establish electronic communication.

To add to the inefficincy the website was offline for several hours on 16/03/08.

Batho Pele - What is It?

Batho Pele was established by Government to

"enhance the quality and accessibility of government services by improving efficiency and accountability to the recipients of public goods and services".

promising the user of government (local, provincial and national) services that eight service delivery principles be implemented

* regularly consult with customers
* set service standards
* increase access to services
* ensure higher levels of courtesy
* provide more and better information about services
* increase openness and transparency about services
* remedy failures and mistakes
* give the best possible value for money.

Do these things seem to be being done in the areas you interact with? - definitely not for me!

Even Sweets Can Be Healthy

Food & Drink Europereport that Lallemand Health Ingredients (LHI) have anounced the launch of a chewy fruit containing PACran cranberry powder eith the claim that "One daily 'PACran softchew' is recommended by the company to support urinary tract health"

This appears to be a growing tend - Euromonitor value the functional and healthy confectionery market at $7.4bn (€5bn) in 2005 representing 24 per cent of the functional food market.

Interesting Maps

I'm looking for what I should be doing on this blog now that I am well into my "second life" and my more business related things are blogged and published elsewhere.

Maybe its just a place to put things that interest me - so what about Cartograms which aim to present information on a world map where the country area represents it's performance compared to the rest of the world.

Look at Africa's situation as far as number of internet connections goes.

from Maplecroft Maps

 

Pedaling Water Filtration

Reminds Me Of Times in My First Life!

Yes there is a competition for the best Fish and Chip Shop in the UK, although I understand there are now more curry shops!

Click on the image of the page to read about the winners

AT LAST!

What am I doing now?

Having been retired for just over a month, I come back to this blog.

One of the things I have focussed on, besides the festive season and holidays, is Stregthening African Food Processing. This was a site that was set up for a USAID funded project that I ran at CSIR. At the end of the project I funded and maintained the site.

This was unfortunately not very efficient and was therefore not very well done.

This is one of my main focuses. It the moment I am trying out various options and the blog is currently at http://web.mac.com/digivuza/SAFPP with some of my other things reachable through http://www.digivu.co.za.

Colourants From Hibiscus Rosella

Scientists in Taiwan have persued the potential of the bright crimsom colour of hibiscus and developed a feeze dried, stabilised product that shows promise.

In this time of a growing demand (although from a small part of the world's population) for natural food ingredients, could this develop into a market for West Africa's experience in producing hibiscus

               photo by JIGGS on www.flickr.com

Link to Full Article in Food Navigator.com

Hibiscus extracts show extra potential as colourant powders

By Stephen Daniells

14/12/2007 - Freeze-dried extracts from hibiscus stabilised by trehalose or maltodextrin can provide colourants for a range of food applications with superior stability, report researchers from Taiwan.

When formulated into a model beverage, lead author Kiattisak Duangmal from Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok reports that the hibiscus extracts performed well in comparison to commercially used colorants: San Red RC and synthetic carmoesin.

Hibiscus extracts are already used by the food industry to give colour and flavour to beverages. The new research, published in the journal LWT - Food Science and Technology, indicates that when the extracts are freeze-dried as powders, they could offer a stable colourant for industry.