The study's objective was to assess the utilisation of digital technologies by smallholder farmers, focusing on the types of digital technologies they use, their awareness and perceptions, and the constraints they face. The study used a systematic literature review design. The results show that there has been an increase in studies focussing on using digital technologies by smallholder farmers in South Africa. The focus has been on e-readiness, tools, and constraints in assisting smallholder farmers amongst extension workers, mainly from North West, KwaZulu-Natal, and Eastern Cape Provinces. Relevant topics have been smart farming, digital agriculture, adoption, and climate change. However, smallholder digital technology studies in South Africa have transitioned from small-scale agriculture and extension between 2012 and 2014 to transformation, food security and perception between 2014 and 2018, and innovations, communication technologies, and dissemination, more recently. Recent studies have focused on the productivity-enhanced adoption of ICTs, with various technologies used along the complexity spectrum. However, smallholder farmers have concentrated on low-tech digital technologies on the lower end of the complexity spectrum because they are more aware of them. End-user, service provider, and digital technology characteristics have constrained the use of digital technologies. In conclusion, smallholder farmers are aware of and use low-tech digital technologies limited by inherent internalised characteristics of the farmers themselves and the digital technologies.

The study assessed the impact of extension services on the use of climate change coping strategies for livestock farmers in Raymond Local Municipality, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. The study utilised a cross-sectional survey design with 82 livestock farmers obtained through a purposive sampling method. The study used Propensity Score Matching (PSM) to analyse the data. Most respondents were single females aged 63, with average household sizes of 6, and hadprimary education, mostly keeping small stock. Climate change was mainly witnessed through changes in rainfall, with 80% of respondents indicating that it is caused by deforestation. The results suggest that access to extension services impacted the extensive utilisation of climate change coping strategies that decreased the livestock numbers at the 10% statistical level. Access to extension appears to limit the available options as coping strategies for climate change resulted in decreased livestock numbers. In conclusion, access to extension has negatively affected the use of various climate change-induced coping strategies for reduced livestock numbers, with no effect on the other coping strategies. Recommendations include retraining extension officers on various climate change coping strategies they can impart to livestock farmers. Also, agricultural climate policy should focus on creating awareness and increasing access to extension services among livestock farmers on climate risk coping strategies to mitigate the impact on rural livestock farmers.

The study ascertained the quality of climate change extension service and its determinants for smallholder farmers in Raymond Mhlaba Local Municipality. The study utilised a cross-sectional survey of 100 households obtained through random sampling. Ordered logistic regression was used to analyse the data. Half of the respondents were female, mainly from Dyamala Village. Most respondents were between 50 and 59 years, married with a primary education level, with household sizes of between five and eight. Most of the respondents were unemployed, with the primary source of income being social grants and a monthly income of R2100-R3000. Most of the respondents knew about climate change, especially from other farmers. Respondents had access to extension advisory services, and 80% of them indicated that the extension services were helpful. However, most respondents indicated that the quality of climate change-related extension services was poor. Age, marital status, employment status, knowledge about climate change, and access to the extension were significant factors in the perceived quality of extension services provided. The study concludes that socioeconomic factors affected the perceived quality of extension service. The study recommends improving the accessibility and spread of extension services. There's also a need to enhance extension training to improve the quality of service delivery.

This paper investigates the impact of the farmer field school approach on the knowledge and production of small-scale vegetable producers, namely home gardeners. Farmer field schools were developed in the 1980s by the Food and Agriculture Organisation as a form of adult education in agriculture. It is a group-based approach in which a facilitator meets with producers on a regular basis and sets in motion a process by which producers 'learn how to learn'. It remains an open question whether the farmer field school approach could be a solution to South Africa's abiding problem of weak agricultural extension. In early 2015, the University of Fort Hare and the Nkonkobe Farmers' Association initiated a number of study groups in the Alice area of the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, based largely on farmer field school principles. The research findings reported in this article are part of an effort to determine to what extent these study groups had the desired effect. After administering surveys to 118 study group members, before and after comparisons were drawn with regards to members' self-assessed knowledge and skills, and production levels of a number of garden vegetables. The findings revealed an impressive increase in self-assessed knowledge and skills, as well as in production, consumption and selling of vegetables. Based on these findings and given the current state of agricultural extension in South Africa, it can be recommended that expansion of the farmer field school approach takes place in other areas, while attempting to better understand the mechanisms underlying the improvements already observed.

In the operation process of centrifugal pumps, especially in multi-stage pumps, axial force is one of the main factors which affect the pump safety and reliability. This paper presents the axial force study in a deep-well centrifugal pump (DCP) with theoretical calculation, numerical simulation and experimental measure. Three different calculation formulas were respectively introduced and used in the model pump. The calculated results were compared and analyzed with the numerical simulation values and experimental results, and the detailed numerical simulation methods and experimental configuration were explained. Finally, the more accurate formula for calculating the axial force in oblique flow centrifugal impeller was selected out. At the rated flow point, the deviation of the axial force obtained by numerical simulation and the experimental value is approximately 3.8%, and the calculated result of selected formula only less than the experimental results of 2.6%. The results provide a theoretical basis for the axial force calculation in the centrifugal impeller design process

Current therapy for pancreatic cancer is multimodal, involving surgery and chemotherapy. However, development of pancreatic cancer therapies requires a thorough evaluation of drug efficacy in vitro before animal testing and subsequent clinical trials. Compared to two-dimensional culture of cell monolayer, three-dimensional (3-D) models more closely mimic native tissues, since the tumor microenvironment established in 3-D models often plays a significant role in cancer progression and cellular responses to the drugs. Accumulating evidence has highlighted the benefits of 3-D in vitro models of various cancers. In the present study, we have developed a spheroid-based, 3-D culture of pancreatic cancer cell lines MIAPaCa-2 and PANC-1 for pancreatic drug testing, using the acid phosphatase assay. Drug efficacy testing showed that spheroids had much higher drug resistance than monolayers. This model, which is characteristically reproducible and easy and offers rapid handling, is the preferred choice for filling the gap between monolayer cell cultures and in vivo models in the process of drug development and testing for pancreatic cancer.

Effects of grain-domain-size (GDS) on levitation force have been directly investigated and identified in well-textured YBCO bulks. A single-grain-domain YBCO bulk (phi=30mm) was prepared by a top seeded melt growth process, then divided into two, three and four grain-domain to acquire the levitation forces of samples with different GDS. It is found that the levitation force of the samples monotonously decreases with the decreasing of the average GDS (or with the increasing of the total length grain-boundaries of the sample). The maximum levitation force for the single-grain-domain sample is about 1.68, 2.05 and 2.4 times higher than that of the samples with two, three, and four grain-domains. It is concluded that the levitation force of a single-grain-domain YBCO bulk is higher than that of samples with multi-grain-domains. It is also found that the levitation force is proportional to the average grain-domain radius, but inverse proportional to the total length of grain-boundaries of the sample, a simple physical model has been provided and well interpret the experiment results.