Orientation: With many organisations vying for the same talent, it is important to ensure that the correct methods are utilised in identifying and attracting the best talent to an organisation.Research purpose: This research investigates the impact of social media on the recruitment process in South Africa.Motivation for the study: As the competition for qualified talent increases, organisations need to understand where to focus their resources to attract the best talent possible. The use of social media is growing daily and its use in the recruitment process seems to have grown exponentially.Research design, approach and method: The sample comprised 12 recruiters, spanning a wide range of industries in South Africa. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and a thematic analysis was utilised to identify themes and subthemes.Main findings: Despite still utilising some traditional methods of recruiting, South African recruiters follow their international counterparts, with LinkedIn being central to their respective recruitment processes. The use of Twitter and Facebook for recruitment was found to be substantially lower in South Africa than elsewhere. Without following a focused approach, the volume of work that emanates from using social media may overwhelm a recruiter.Practical and managerial implications: Recruiters cannot execute effective recruitment without applying social media tools such as LinkedIn. However, training in the optimal use of social media is essential.Contribution: This study indicates that LinkedIn has a major impact on recruitment in South Africa, but that social media is not a panacea for recruitment issues.

The bottom-up assembly of multicompartment artificial cells that are able to direct biochemical reactions along a specific spatial pathway remains a considerable engineering challenge. In this work, we address this with a microfluidic platform that is able to produce monodisperse multivesicular vesicles (MVVs) to serve as synthetic eukaryotic cells. Using a two-inlet polydimethylsiloxane channel design to co-encapsulate different populations of liposomes we are able to produce lipid-based MVVs in a high-throughput manner and with three separate inner compartments, each containing a different enzyme: α-glucosidase, glucose oxidase, and horseradish peroxidase. We demonstrate the ability of these MVVs to carry out directed chemical communication between the compartments via the reconstitution of size-selective membrane pores. Therefore, the signal transduction, which is triggered externally, follows a specific spatial pathway between the compartments. We use this platform to study the effects of enzyme cascade compartmentalization by direct analytical comparison between bulk, one-, two-, and three-compartment systems. This microfluidic strategy to construct complex hierarchical structures is not only suitable to study compartmentalization effects on biochemical reactions but is also applicable for developing advanced drug delivery systems as well as minimal cells in the field of bottom-up synthetic biology.

Several experimental techniques involving dynamic electrical variables are used to study the complex behaviour of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells in order to improve performance and durability. Among them, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) is one of the most employed methods. Like any frequency response analysis (FRA) methodology, EIS enables one to separate the contribution of many processes to performance losses. However, it fails to identify processes with a similar time constant and the interpretation of EIS spectra is often ambiguous. In the last decade, alternative FRA methodologies based on non-electrical inputs and/or outputs have been developed. These studies were mainly driven by requirements for a better diagnosis of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) faulty operation conditions as well as better component and material design. In this contribution, a state-of-the-art EIS and novel FRA techniques for PEMFC diagnosis are summarised. First, common degradation mechanisms and their causes are discussed. A mathematical framework based on linear system theory of time invariant systems is described in order to explain the theoretical implications of the use of different input/output configurations. In relation to this, the concepts and potential are depicted as well as the problematic aspects and future prospective of these diagnostic approaches.