South Africa's water and sanitation sector reform: progress and challenges

Some ten years back, South Africa’s newly elected government inherited huge services backlogs with respect to access to water supply and sanitation. About 15 million people were without safe water supply and over 20 million without adequate sanitation services. Since then, the country has made a remarkable progress with regard to accelerating the pace of services provision and restructuring and refocusing the entire water sector. Having ensured access to an additional population of over 10 million people, South Africa is well on track to wipe out the infrastructure backlog for basic water supply by 2008, exceeding the MDG target. But, first, with respect to sanitation for which the national target is universal access to a functioning facility by 2010, the picture is somewhat different. Second, substantial challenges remain in addressing historical inequalities in access to both water supply and sanitation, and in sustaining service provision over the long term

Effect of Processing Parameters on Solvent Oil Expression from Loofah Seeds (Luffa cylindrica L.) using Response Surface Methodology

Luffah cylindrica plant grows in the wild, around uncompleted buildings and fenced walls. The percentage oil composition of its seeds is about 30% oil. The research focused was the extraction oil from loofah seed using a solvent extraction methodology. Optimum conditions for oil extraction were determined using Response Surface Methodology of Central Composite Rotatable Design. A total of 20 experimental runs were used to investigate the optimum condition considering three independent variables at five levels each: extraction temperature (55, 60, 65, 60, 75ºC), seed/solvent ratio (0.04, 0.05, 0.06, 0.07, 0.08 g/ml) and extraction time (4, 5, 6, 7, 8 hr.). An empirical model equation that could be used to forecast oil yield as a function of the independent variables was developed. The optimum oil yield obtained was 27.43% at the extraction temperature (74.05ºC), seed/solvent ratio (0.05 g/ml) and extraction time (5.35hr). The analysis of variance showed that extraction temperature and time had significant effect on oil yield (p = 0.05). The interaction of the independent variables with oil yield gave R2 and R2 adj. values of 0.98 and 0.93, respectively. The result showed that the selected independent variables had a significant effect on oil yield, thus an optimum condition was established

Coordination: coverage catalyst in Swaziland

Coordination: coverage catalyst in Swazilan

Searching for configurations in clone evaluation - A replication study

Clone detection is the process of finding duplicated code within a software code base in an automated manner. It is useful in several areas of software development such as code quality analysis, bug detection, and program understanding.We replicate a study of a geneticalgorithm based framework that optimises parameters for clone agreement (EvaClone). We apply the framework to 14 releases of Mockito, a Java mocking framework. We observe that the optimised parameters outperform the tools’ default parameters in term of clone agreement by 19.91% to 66.43 %. However, the framework gives undesirable results in term of clone quality. EvaClone either maximises or minimises a number of clones in order to achieve the highest agreement resulting in more false positives or false negatives introduced consequently

ASSESSMENT OF THE GEOTECHNICAL PROPERTIES OF TERMITE REWORKED SOILS

The determination of the geotechnical properties of inhabited termitaria (termite mounds) from three different locations in Lagos, Nigeria was carried out. Soil samples were taken at the cores of termitaria and also at 3m of either side of termitaria. Nine bulk representative soil samples depicting three termitaria soils and six adjacent soil samples were collected. Some geotechnical properties such as specific gravity, grain size distribution, consistency limits, linear shrinkage, CBR, and consolidation of the soils were determined. The chemical properties of the termitaria soil as compared to the adjacent surrounding soil was also analysed. The result showed that the geotechnical properties of termitaria are far better than the adjacent or surrounding soils. The activity of termites was identified as the primary cause of these improvements

Rice husk as a concrete constituent: Workability, water absorption and strength of the concrete

In an attempt to reduce the cost of concrete production, efforts are being made to utilize part of the waste generated during rice production. This research work investigates the effects of partially replacing sand with rice husk on the structural properties of fresh and hardened concrete. Laboratory tests to determine the workability, air content, compressive strength and water absorption properties of the concrete, with varying proportion of rice husk as partial replacement of the fine aggregate, were conducted. The workability of the concrete was improved as its rice husk content increased. The unit weight and compressive strength of the concrete decreased with increasing rice husk content while the concrete specimens absorbed more water and have increased air content with increasing rice husk content. The use of not more than 12.5% rice husk, as replacement of sand, was recommended for producing concrete that will be used for load-bearing applications

Acute Hypoglycaemic Activities and Fatty Acid Profile of Seed Oil of Moringa oleifera Lam

The adverse effect of oral hypoglycaemic drugs necessitated the search for efficient and safer antidiabetic drugs from herbal formulation. As such, the fatty acids profile and acute antidia­betic activities of Moringa oleifera seed oil extract of petroleum ether (PEEMO) and Moringa oleifera seed oil extract of dichloromethane (DCMMO) were investigated. The 2.0 mL/kg body weight (kg.bw) of both oils, 500 μg/kg.bw of glibenclimide and 2.0 mL/kg.bw of dimethyl sulphoxide (DMSO) were given orally to rats in their respective groups after induction with 2 g/kg.bw of glucose solution orally. Unsaturated fatty acids contents were in high proportion in both oils when compared to saturated fatty acids content. Administration of glucose solution significantly elevated the blood glucose level to 24.71, 47.83, 44.05, 44.78 and 30.86% for normoglycaemic, control, glibenclimide, DCMMO and PEEMO respectively at 30 minutes from their respective basal blood glucose level. However, the blood glucose level of the glib­enclimide, PEEMO, DCMMO treated groups were significantly (p<0.05) reduced at 60 (24.57, 15.61 and 10.69%), 90 (43.87, 30.08 and 15.45%) and 120 (57.98, 19.82 and 41.33%) minutes respectively when compared with that of 30 minutes’ blood glucose levels. Therefore, Moringa oleifera seed oil extracts demonstrated acute hypoglycaemic effects in glucose fed rats. Keywords: Moringa oleifera, glibenclimide, antidiabetic, diabetes, unsaturated fatty acids