Developing methods to access sensitive industrial wastewater information in South Africa (with treatment in mind)

South Africa is a water stressed country, therefore it is important to understand water use and wastewater generation. Previous research and workshops have identified gaps in the characterisation and remediation of wastewaters in South Africa. Wastewater management can take advantage of wastewater as a valuable resource. However, treatment is required to recover this value, while characterisation is required to develop treatments. Yet wastewater characterisation information is often poorly reported. The nature of industrial wastewaters (in terms of volume, location and composition), and the norms of wastewater characterisation reporting (in terms of quality and accessibility) formed the basis for two research questions. A major component of this research was developing methods to access sensitive wastewater information. Relational approaches were based on building relationships through phone calls, emails, meetings and site visits. Formal, legal requests for were made with application in terms if the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA). Even though wastewater information is not confidential, it is not readily accessible. 87 people from 42 companies or institutions were contacted; 14% of interactions lead to shared data or a meeting, and 12% shared resources. Key industries of interest were: pulp and paper, fish processing, power generation, mining and petroleum. Previous estimates of South African industrial wastewater volumes ranged from 70 – 350 Mm3 /annum. The pulp and paper industry contributed between 28 and 43% of this volume; petroleum contributed 9 to 26%. Both industries were located inland and in coastal regions of South Africa. These industries were most concerned with COD. Mining and power generation contributed 10 – 15% and 7 – 14% respectively. These industries were located inland, and were concerned with total dissolved solids, and specifically sulphate, sodium and chlorides. The fish processing industry contributed between 0 and 23% of volumes, depending whether wastewaters released to a marine environment were included. Seven parameters were reported for over half of the streams considered (65 in total). These parameters were: pH, volume, electrical conductivity, nitrogen, sulphate, sodium and COD. Sulphate and sodium were dominant ions. Calcium was not measured, even though discharge limits were listed in environmental licenses. Characterisation information was reported for compliance and not for treatability. The parameters measured should be expanded to include important parameters for treatability. Industry, research institution and governmental bodies can work together to identify such parameters and develop locally relevant treatments. It is recommended that possible synergies between these groupings be enhanced to improve wastewater management. But an atmosphere of trust and transparency is required to facilitate synergistic relationships. The legal framework in South Africa can be used to motivate for transparency with respect to wastewaters

A European perspective on auditory processing disorder-current knowledge and future research focus

Current notions of \u201chearing impairment,\u201d as reflected in clinical audiological practice, do not acknowledge the needs of individuals who have normal hearing pure tone sensitivity but who experience auditory processing difficulties in everyday life that are indexed by reduced performance in other more sophisticated audiometric tests such as speech audiometry in noise or complex non-speech sound perception. This disorder, defined as \u201cAuditory Processing Disorder\u201d (APD) or \u201cCentral Auditory Processing Disorder\u201d is classified in the current tenth version of the International Classification of diseases as H93.25 and in the forthcoming beta eleventh version. APDs may have detrimental effects on the affected individual, with low esteem, anxiety, and depression, and symptoms may remain into adulthood. These disorders may interfere with learning per se and with communication, social, emotional, and academic-work aspects of life. The objective of the present paper is to define a baseline European APD consensus formulated by experienced clinicians and researchers in this specific field of human auditory science. A secondary aim is to identify issues that future research needs to address in order to further clarify the nature of APD and thus assist in optimumdiagnosis and evidence-based management. This European consensus presents the main symptoms, conditions, and specific medical history elements that should lead to auditory processing evaluation. Consensus on definition of the disorder, optimum diagnostic pathway, and appropriate management are highlighted alongside a perspective on future research focus

Developing an Efficient DMCIS with Next-Generation Wireless Networks

The impact of extreme events across the globe is extraordinary which continues to handicap the advancement of the struggling developing societies and threatens most of the industrialized countries in the globe. Various fields of Information and Communication Technology have widely been used for efficient disaster management; but only to a limited extent though, there is a tremendous potential for increasing efficiency and effectiveness in coping with disasters with the utilization of emerging wireless network technologies. Early warning, response to the particular situation and proper recovery are among the main focuses of an efficient disaster management system today. Considering these aspects, in this paper we propose a framework for developing an efficient Disaster Management Communications and Information System (DMCIS) which is basically benefited by the exploitation of the emerging wireless network technologies combined with other networking and data processing technologies.Comment: 6 page

A Secure Lightweight Approach of Node Membership Verification in Dense HDSN

In this paper, we consider a particular type of deployment scenario of a distributed sensor network (DSN), where sensors of different types and categories are densely deployed in the same target area. In this network, the sensors are associated with different groups, based on their functional types and after deployment they collaborate with one another in the same group for doing any assigned task for that particular group. We term this sort of DSN as a heterogeneous distributed sensor network (HDSN). Considering this scenario, we propose a secure membership verification mechanism using one-way accumulator (OWA) which ensures that, before collaborating for a particular task, any pair of nodes in the same deployment group can verify each other-s legitimacy of membership. Our scheme also supports addition and deletion of members (nodes) in a particular group in the HDSN. Our analysis shows that, the proposed scheme could work well in conjunction with other security mechanisms for sensor networks and is very effective to resist any adversary-s attempt to be included in a legitimate group in the network.Comment: 6 page

Centralized vs. decentralized computing : organizational considerations and management options

The long-standing debate over whether to centralize or decentralize computing is examined in terms of the fundamental organizational and economic factors at stake. The traditional debate is examined and found to focus predominantly on issues of efficiency vs. effectiveness, with solutions based on a rationalistic strategy of optimizing in this tradeoff. A more behavioralistic assessment suggests that the driving issues in the debate are the politics of organization and resources, centering on the issue of control. The economics of computing deployment decisions is presented as an important issue, but one that often serves as a field of argument that is based on more political concerns. The current situation facing managers of computing, given the advent of small and comparatively inexpensive computers, is examined in detail, and a set of management options for dealing with this persistent issue is presented

Sketch of Big Data Real-Time Analytics Model

Big Data has drawn huge attention from researchers in information sciences, decision makers in governments and enterprises. However, there is a lot of potential and highly useful value hidden in the huge volume of data. Data is the new oil, but unlike oil data can be refined further to create even more value. Therefore, a new scientific paradigm is born as data-intensive scientific discovery, also known as Big Data. The growth volume of real-time data requires new techniques and technologies to discover insight value. In this paper we introduce the Big Data real-time analytics model as a new technique. We discuss and compare several Big Data technologies for real-time processing along with various challenges and issues in adapting Big Data. Real-time Big Data analysis based on cloud computing approach is our future research direction