A confluence of new technology and the right to water: Experience and potential from South Africa's constitution and commons

South Africa's groundbreaking constitution explicitly confers a right of access to sufficient water (section 27). But the country is officially 'water-stressed' and around 10 % of the population still has no access to on-site or off-site piped or tap water. It is evident that a disconnect exists between this right and the reality for many; however the reasons for the continuation of such discrepancies are not always clear. While barriers to sufficient water are myriad, one significant factor contributing to insufficient and unpredictable access to water is the high percentage of broken water pumps. Previous studies have reported that between 20 and 50 % of all hand operated water pumps installed on the African continent are broken, or out of use. Monitoring and maintenance of pumps, which in South Africa is the responsibility of local municipalities is often ineffective, in part due to the distances between municipal centres and rural communities and the consequent costs of site visits, as well as breakdowns within the local bureaucratic system. The emergence of new telemetry tools that can remotely monitor water applications constitutes a novel and cost-efficient alternative to undertaking regular sites visits. Sustainable, appropriate, low-cost telemetry systems are emerging that could be used to monitor the operational performance of water pumps, or a wide range of other field parameters, and to communicate this information swiftly and cheaply to water service providers, using SMS messages. Data on the performance of water pumps could also be made available to the public online. This is an example of how ICT can be used for water resources management and environmental regulation, as well as in the governance of socio-economic rights: helping to optimize water allocation by improving communication and strengthening accountability. © 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

Phonon entropy of alloying and ordering of Cu-Au

Inelastic neutron scattering spectra were measured with a time-of-flight spectrometer on six disordered Cu-Au alloys at 300 K. The neutron-weighted phonon density of states was obtained from a conventional analysis of these spectra. Several methods were developed to account for this neutron weighting and obtain the phonon entropy of the disordered alloys. The phonon entropies of formation of disordered fcc Cu-Au alloys obtained in this way were generally mutually consistent, and were also consistent with predictions from a cluster approximation obtained from ab-initio calculations by Ozolin[underaccent cedilla [below] s-breve, Wolverton, and Zunger. We estimate a phonon entropy of disordering of 0.15±0.05kB/atom in Cu3Au at 300 K. A resonance mode associated with the motions of the heavy Au atoms in the Cu-rich alloys was observed at 9 meV. An analysis of the resonance mode provided a check on the partial phonon entropy of Au atoms

Protecting the Appearance of Judicial Impartiality in the Face of Law Clerk Employment Negotiations

This Comment examines the relationship among judges, law clerks, and the requirements placed on both to maintain the appearance of impartiality. It also addresses current standards applied to this problem and evaluates those standards based on the policies behind the cases and rules governing conflicts of interest. It analyzes what circumstances mandate removal of clerks from cases, as well as what circumstances mandate the removal of the clerks\u27 respective judges. Finally, this Comment proposes a rule of professional responsibility for judges and clerks to follow when the clerks are involved in employment negotiations, and suggests the implementation of training and communication practices to avoid altogether many of the problems created when clerks negotiate for employment

Critical Legal Theory and The Politics of Pragmatism

In this century mainstream legal scholarship in the United States has been subjected to various crises of confidence over the nature of the adjudication process. One of the key features of more traditional legal scholarship has been a belief in legal texts such as the constitution, statutes and precedents which are said to possess discrete and objective meaning capable of being discovered by objective detached observers. This belief in the authority of the text has been most clearly expressed in American constitutional law scholarship which has been dominated until recently by the quest to reveal the public moral values that are said to inhere in the body of the constitutional document itself. With the insights of the Legal Realists into the subjective preferences of legal actors, the foundations of this belief were severely shaken. Much of the last fifty years has been spent trying to shore up the belief in the objective meaning of social norms derived from legal texts

A pilot study of a combined energy and water hub in The Gambia Waterlines

Many people across the developing world live ‘off-grid’ in terms of access to mains electricity, and therefore depend upon alternative power sources to recharge their mobile phones. These recharging facilities are typically located in shops/informal businesses, and often powered by a diesel generator or solar panel. Many of these rural communities are also served by local water infrastructure that has fallen into a state of disrepair. It has been reported that many individuals are prepared to pay a small regular fee to recharge their mobile phone, whilst their wider communities may often claim to lack sufficient funds to keep their water infrastructure maintained. This paper introduces a pilot study in Gambia that combines an off-grid recharging hub with a community water point. It is proposed that a proportion of the income generated by this enterprise could be retained and used to fund the on-going maintenance costs of the recharging hub and the local water infrastructure

Biosynthesis of Two Dilignol Rhamnosides in Leaves of Thuja Plicata Donn

One of a series of dilignol glycosides previously isolated from western red cedar leaves has now been identified as 2, 3-dihydro-7-hydroxy-2- (4'-hydroxy-3'methoxyphenyl)-3-hydroxymethyl-5-benzofuran-propan-3"-0-α-L-rhamnopyranoside. In an experiment to determine biosynthesis rate, cut western red cedar leaves took up 37% radioactive phenylalanine (label) after 10 h. The newly identified compound took 3 h to reach a maximum uptake of label of 0.4%. A previously identified dilignol glycoside reached a maximum uptake of 0.3% in the same period. Both glycosides in leaves were rapidly anabolized, therefore, and since their label decreased after 5 h, they were precursors to other unknown compounds. The possible role of these glycosides in wound response or leaf lignin formation is considered