The historical study of nationalist movements in Africa is obviously of critical importance for the future history of mankind, but the relevance of such an undertaking is not quite so self-evident from the point of view of the social sciences more generally. Yet political scientists concerned primarily with the comparative analysis of contemporary political systems have come to recognize that the formative period of an organization is as important as its equivalent in the life of individuals; anthropologists and sociologists have found it useful to examine the emergence of new organizational life in Africa in order to intercept crucial aspects of the process of cultural and structural change. Scholars interested in individual behavior often discover new men in the making when they appear as actors in new organizations. If this were not enough to justify a cooperative effort on the part of researchers from a variety of academic tribes, it might be added that by reconstructing the history of nationalism social scientists can perform a significant service for their African hosts in search of a contemporary identity.

Although the origins of “nationalism” in Africa can and must be traced to at least the middle of the nineteenth century in some cases, it is evident that the period between the two world wars was one of direct preparation for the emergence of large-scale movements immediately afterwards. More is known about this period in some countries than in others, partly as a function of the more or less liberal nature of the colonial regime.

In heavy oil fields hosted in sandstone, steam flooding is a crucial technique for enhancing oil recovery. The swelling of clay minerals in these reservoirs, particularly those with high clay content, presents a significant challenge by causing permeability damage and hindering oil production. The objective of the present study was to investigate clay swelling phenomena in a sandstone oil reservoir where smectite-illite clays make up 40% of the reservoir rock. Through comprehensive static and dynamic tests, clay swelling behavior and its impact on permeability degradation were examined under varying temperature and salinity conditions typical of thermally enhanced oil recovery (EOR) processes. Results indicated that clay swelling is exacerbated under low salinity and high temperature, leading to severe permeability impairment. At high salinities (2000–4920 mg L–1), the swellability was relatively low, but it increased significantly as salinity decreased to a range of 0–2000 mg L–1. Static swelling tests revealed that the maximum clay expansion, with a 2.25-fold increase in volume, occurred in distilled water at 200°C. Additionally, the critical salt concentration (CSC) was found to increase with temperature, causing a more pronounced and earlier swelling effect. This increase in temperature coupled with a decrease in salinity impaired permeability significantly, with the most severe reduction, of 73.3%, observed at 150°C during distilled water flooding. Comparisons between static and dynamic tests showed consistent degrees of clay swelling across both methods. The findings of this study advance the understanding of clay swelling under thermal EOR conditions, particularly regarding the effects of salinity and temperature on permeability impairment in sandstone formations.

Visceral larva migrans syndrome (VLM) is caused by L2 Toxocara canis. This parasitic disease is difficult to diagnose in humans, but specific antigen identification could allow for parasite detection. The aim of this study was to analyse antigens of different parasite developmental stages and observe their cross-reactions with antigens from other parasites to determine their importance in the diagnosis of VLM caused by T. canis. Sera from 14 children with cryptogenic epilepsy previously positive for T. canis were analysed via Western blot (WB) using T. canis excretion-secretion antigens (TESs) from distinct morphological parasite stages; cross-reactivity of these antigens with antigens from other parasites were evaluated. Children sera recognized antigens from L2 T. canis TES, mainly a protein of 24 kDa. Proteins in the medium- and high-molecular-weight ranges were also detected in the egg phase. In the adult phase, only 42.9% of analysed sera recognized a protein of high-molecular weight. Cross-reaction tests identified medium and high-molecular weight proteins, mainly from L2 of Ascaris lumbricoides and Gnathostoma binucleatum and adults of Ancylostoma caninum, but none of the proteins found had crossover with low-molecular weight proteins from Toxocara canis. Antigens in the larval morphological stage of T. canis TES were recognized in the highest percentage of the analysed sera; these antigens could be used to diagnose VLM.

Singularly lacking in the current discussion of concepts as the appropriate basis for the new social studies curriculum are concepts which are comparative in nature. For example, the Social Studies Curriculum Center at Syracuse University identified eighteen substantive concepts that “appear to be appropriate for elementary and secondary programs in social studies.” Only one concept -- “comparative advantage” -- of these eighteen substantive concepts, however, even faintly implies a comparison. Moreover, comparative advantage is described in terms of bargaining and conflict, not in distinctive social realities. A different group of concepts was identified by the Wisconsin Social Studies Committee. The Committee attempted to identify several basic conceptual ideas that underlie the central elements of history and each of the social sciences in order “to help our young people extract meaning and bring order from the sea of facts which may otherwise inundate them.” But the concepts identified by the Wisconsin Social Studies Committee are vague and do not imply comparison of data or interpretations. The major concept identified for history, for example, is “Change is inevitable.” But what does the concept mean? Does the concept help the student in extracting meaning and bringing order to a sea of facts? More important, does the concept exclude the possibility of constants in history which may be the truth of the matter for some societies? Indeed, the concept, as stated, encourages convergent rather than divergent thinking by the student. Like a Mondrian painting, the reality depicted may be impressive but no one is quite sure what it all means.

The Ford Foundation has announced a grant of $90,000 to the African Studies Association for a three-year program to facilitate the acquisition and use of research materials on Africa. The three main projects included in the grant are: 1) compilation of a guide to Africa-related materials in U. S. archives, in cooperation with an international program to locate unpublished materials on Africa; 2) provision of inventories of materials in the United States for study of African art and humanities; and 3) United States participation in an Oxford University project to collect personal papers of British ex-colonial administrators and to collect and photograph administrative archives in Kenya.

The program will be administered by the Archives Committee of the Association. It is anticipated that microfilm copies of certain materials collected by the project at Oxford University will be made available to American scholars under the program. Further details of the program will be announced in a later issue of the Bulletin.

This report is the result of discussions and recommendations of the Archaeology Committee of the African Studies Association, which met in Chicago early in April, 1966. African archaeology is at present an international discipline producing close collaboration among scientists from different countries, and the future of archaeological research in the continent can best be viewed as an international exercise in which American palaeo-anthropologists are beginning to play an increasingly important part. These brief notes attempt to synthesize the present position in African prehistoric studies, to show the general direction in which these are being developed, and to indicate immediate priorities in basic research and training.

The 1965 Wenner-Gren Conference on African archaeology and evolutionary studies showed that palaeo-anthropology and the closely associated studies of stratigraphers and palaeontologists are now entering upon a new stage of precision in analysis, dating, and interpretation. It emphasized the absolute necessity for new basic research to be undertaken, organized as a series of team projects.

New discoveries have resulted in revised concepts of the origin and evolution of animal species, vegetation patterns, landscape features, and of man himself and his culture. This more precise knowledge has underlined the need above all to review the revised dating of human and cultural evolution in the light of the geophysical methods that now provide an absolute time scale. This is equally as applicable to archaeologists and ethnohistorians concerned with later prehistoric times as it is to those dealing with the study of early man.

Since it began active programs in 1951, the Ford Foundation has had two principal sorts of interest in the areas outside the Western world. One is to help these areas in the development efforts that are now their great preoccupation. There is a division of the Foundation called the Overseas Development Program that has this purpose. Another interest is in American capacities for understanding and dealing with the non-Western world. The Foundation's International Training and Research Program pursues this aim, through grants to universities and other academic organizations, through an area training fellowship program, and through other means. A third division of the Foundation, the International Affairs Program, supports non-academic American organizations concerned with international affairs, and adds other sorts of activities through in Europe and a general concern with peace and international order.

Using bi-contact geometry, we define a new type of Dehn surgery on an Anosov flow with orientable weak invariant foliations. The Anosovity of the new flow is strictly connected to contact geometry and the Reeb dynamics of the defining bi-contact structure. This approach gives new insights into the properties of the flows produced by Goodman surgery and clarifies under which conditions Goodman’s construction yields an Anosov flow. Our main application gives a necessary and sufficient condition to generate a contact Anosov flow by Foulon–Hasselblatt Legendrian surgery on a geodesic flow. In particular, we show that this is possible if and only if the surgery is performed along a simple closed geodesic. As a corollary, we have that any positive skewed $\mathbb {R}$-covered Anosov flow obtained by a single surgery on a closed orbit of a geodesic flow is orbit equivalent to a positive contact Anosov flow.

This article is a supplement to a previous article on the same subject published in the African Studies Bulletin. Before I list further citations omitted from Materials for West African History in the Archives of Belgium and Holland, I will discuss, in some detail, the nature of the archival material deposited in the Algemeen Rijksarchief, The Hague. I will attempt to enhance the brief discussions of Miss Carson while avoiding repetition of statements which seem clear and/or are adequately discussed in her book.

The General State Archives, The Hague, includes two major collections of interest to the West African historian: the Archives of the West India Companies and the Archives of the Netherlands Settlements on the Guinea Coast. Initially, one must realize that most of the seventeenth-century papers of both collections have been lost or destroyed, and that as a consequence there are many gaps among the existing manuscripts. For example, volume 81 (1658-1709) of the Archives of the Netherlands Settlements on the Guinea Coast includes only manuscripts for the following times: December 25, 1658-June 12, 1660; August, 1693; and October 12-December 31, 1709. Also, most of the seventeenth-century material is written in script, whereas the eighteenth-century manuscripts, with some exceptions, are in more conventional hand-writings.

Since its establishment in 1966, the Research Liaison Committee has been charged by the members of the African Studies Association with the responsibility of finding ways to strengthen collaboration among African scholars and scholars from North America engaged in African research. The R.L.C, has been the principal instrument of the African Studies Association for informing and advising its members about research projects conducted in Africa by African, American, and other scholars; about the programs and facilities of research centers and institutes located in Africa; about the policies and procedures of governments and universities in Africa with respect to research and the activities of foreign research workers; and about the special needs and priority concerns of the governmental and academic research communities in Africa. The obverse of these responsibilities has been the effort by the R.L.C, to improve the means of communication with African research centers and to increase their familiarity with the capabilities and interests of American scholars concerned with Africa, particularly in the social sciences, the humanities, and in the broad field of development research.

The R.L.C. has found two principal means of carrying out these responsibilities. First, it has entered into cooperation with groups of research centers in Africa, and with councils of scholars and directors of research institutes, to enlarge the exchange of information between the scholarly communities of Africa and North America; a notable example is the collaboration with the Council of Directors of Economic and Social Research Institutes in Africa (CODESRIA), whose chairman, Dr. H. M. A. Onitiri of the University of Ibadan, visited major centers of African studies in the United States in the spring of 1969 as a guest of the African Studies Association.