Welcome to AfricArXiv
This initiative showcases UbuntuNet's commitment to fostering knowledge sharing, collaboration, and accessibility within the African research community. With AfricArxiv, researchers across the continent have a dedicated platform to disseminate their findings, making them accessible to a global audience. By facilitating open access to scholarly work, UbuntuNet Alliance plays a pivotal role in advancing the principles of open science, enhancing research visibility, and driving innovation across Africa.
Communities in AfricArXiv
Select a community to browse its collections.
- The general repository is open for individual submissions by researchers, librarians and research administrators.
- Showcase of project activities, presentations, and scholarly contributions curated by the AfricArXiv initiative.
- Scholarly items sorted by country > Institution > Department
- A Rapid Grant Fund to address research questions and implement science engagement activities associated with COVID-19
Recent Submissions
Learning From Cancer: Extending Cell Viability by Telomerase Modulation
(2025) Sola-Ojo, Modade
Normal cells age because their telomeres shorten with every division, eventually reaching a point
known as the Hayflick limit. Cancer cells avoid this fate by keeping telomerase active, giving them
the ability to divide indefinitely. This commentary asks whether the same principle, if tightly
controlled, could be turned toward useful ends. Control of telomerase in normal cells might
promote their longevity in bioprocesses where culture stability is paramount, or in regenerative
medicine, where tissues need more time to regenerate. The idea is simple, but the path forward
requires serious effort to ensure safety and long-term control. In essence, understanding cancer to
apply its strategic hallmarks in ways that benefit human health and technology.
Innovative Limonoid-Based Targeted Therapy: Citrus-Derived Compounds for Selective Apoptosis and Cell-Cycle Control in Estrogen-Dependent Breast Cancer
(Publisher, 2025-11-15) Barack Ndenga
Estrogen receptor–positive (ER⁺) breast cancer remains a critical oncological challenge due to therapeutic resistance, adverse effects of endocrine treatments, and cellular heterogeneity. This study introduces an innovative targeted therapy model utilizing limonoids extracted from Citrus limon, focusing on their selective apoptotic and cell-cycle regulatory properties. Employing AutoEvoChem™ V2.0, a molecular evolutionary simulation platform developed by the author, we conducted ligand–receptor docking, evolutionary binding optimization, and probabilistic conformational scanning of principal limonoids—including limonine, nomiline, and obacunone—against key molecular targets: ERα, ERβ, CDK4/6, Bcl-2, and caspase regulatory domains.
Computational simulations reveal that these limonoids exhibit preferential affinity for the ERα ligand-binding domain, triggering allosteric destabilization that attenuates estrogen-driven transcriptional activity. Additionally, limonoids enhance recruitment of caspase-3 and caspase-9 and upregulate p53 expression, while simultaneously downregulating cyclin D1 and CDK4/6 complexes, thereby inducing G1-phase cell-cycle arrest. These predictions delineate a dual anticancer mechanism consisting of (1) selective apoptosis activation in ER⁺ cells and (2) suppression of cell-cycle progression through checkpoint modulation.
Overall, these findings position Citrus limon–derived limonoids as promising low-toxicity candidates for novel targeted therapies against hormone-dependent breast cancer, with particular potential in low-resource clinical settings.
Silence as Medium
(Museum of One, 2025-11-15) Vale, Dorian
This text is a sustained philosophical exploration of silence as an aesthetic, ethical, and epistemic medium. It examines silence not as the absence of sound, but as a generative presence that structures perception, meaning, and artistic encounter. Within the framework of Post-Interpretive Criticism, silence is positioned as the original ground from which expression emerges and the final condition to which all expression returns.
The treatise analyzes distinctions between silence as containment and silence as erasure, arguing that the ethical force of silence lies in its use: it can dignify the unsayable or be weaponized to suppress and marginalize. The work draws on cross-disciplinary examples from sculpture, poetry, music, film, and museology, illustrating how restraint shapes the architecture of experience. It argues that silence is foundational to perception, authorship, and criticism, and that the erosion of silence in digital culture has produced a contemporary “poverty of depth” characterized by immediacy without intimacy.
Within the museum context, the text advocates for silence as a curatorial principle—an element of spatial ethics that allows artworks to be encountered with attention rather than overwhelmed by spectacle or interpretive noise. It further articulates the responsibilities of the artist and the critic: the artist must discern which silence they invoke; the critic must understand which silence they break.
This essay contributes to ongoing discussions in contemporary aesthetics, museum studies, and critical theory by reframing silence as an essential but endangered cultural resource. It presents silence as an uncommodifiable medium that resists institutional, linguistic, and commercial capture. The work aligns with and expands the theoretical commitments of the Post-Interpretive Movement, emphasizing moral proximity, restraint, and the ethics of presence.
Keywords:
silence, aesthetics, presence, restraint, Post-Interpretive Criticism, contemporary art theory, curatorial ethics, museum studies, phenomenology, philosophy of art, negative space, attention, minimalism, epistemology of perception, digital culture, sovereignty, ethical criticism
Related Fields:
Aesthetic theory, contemporary art criticism, philosophy of perception, curatorial practice, media studies, digital humanities, art history, phenomenology.
License: (Fill according to your preference — CC-BY, CC-BY-NC, or All Rights Reserved)
This entry is connected to a series of original theories and treatises forming the foundation of the Post-Interpretive Criticism movement (Q136308909), authored by Dorian Vale (Q136308916) and published by Museum of One (Q136308879). These include: Stillmark Theory (Q136328254), Hauntmark Theory (Q136328273), Absential Aesthetic Theory (Q136328330), Viewer-as-Evidence Theory (Q136328828), Message-Transfer Theory (Q136329002), Aesthetic Displacement Theory (Q136329014), Theory of Misplacement (Q136329054), and _Art as Truth: A Treatise_ (Q136329071), _Aesthetic Recursion Theory_ (Q136339843), The Journal of Post-Interpretive Criticism (Q136530009), Canon of Witnesses (Q136565881)
How do discrete optimization models (MST, Steiner Tree, Max-Flow/Min-Cut, MILP) scale in cost, coverage, and runtime for rural electrification networks of different sizes?
(Kwadwo Amoah Asumadu, 2025-11-15) Kwadwo Amoah Asumadu
This study investigates the performance, scalability, and practicality of four network design models—Minimum Spanning Tree (MST), Steiner Tree, Max-Flow/Min-Cut (MFMC), and Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP)—for rural electrification planning in an African context. Using simulated village networks of varying sizes, the work evaluates each model based on computational efficiency, total connection cost, coverage, and robustness. Results show that MST consistently delivers low-cost, fully connected solutions at exceptional speeds, making it suitable for large-scale deployments. The Steiner Tree model achieves marginally lower costs but at the expense of significant computational overhead and instability for large networks. MFMC performs well for flow-related constraints but struggles to provide complete network structures. MILP offers globally optimal solutions on large instances but becomes computationally intractable as network size decreases. Overall, the findings highlight the trade-offs between optimality and scalability, providing a framework to guide infrastructure planners in selecting appropriate algorithms for electrification projects across developing regions.
Seismic Activation Model Reconciliation (submitted to KeAI Earthquake Science)
(2025-11-15) Brox, Daniel
A strain energy diffusion model is presented as a means of reconciling different seismic moment time scaling relations presented by previous seismic activation models. Using similarity solutions to the 1D modified porous medium equation, anomalous diffusion of strain energy along the mainshock fault is demonstrated to increase strain energy density at the mainshock hypocenter while decreasing strain energy density elsewhere until mainshock rupture occurs.