1,384 research outputs found
Garden footprint area and water use of gated communities in South Africa
Gated community homes in South Africa are popular amongst property buyers in urban environments such as cities and metropoles due to the increased security and lifestyle improvements offered. Garden design and layout requirements are prescribed in architectural guidelines compiled by the homeowners associations of these communities. Garden footprint area in gated community homes is of importance to researchers and planners, because of the influence on water use. This study used a quantitative approach to evaluate the spatial data of garden footprint area as a percentage of total plot area for 1 813 gated community homes in different regions of South Africa. The research reviewed how garden footprint area is prescribed and how it is applied in gated community homes. The impact of garden footprint area on water use was also analysed. The results were compared to relevant information lifted from specific architectural design guidelines developed for each gated community. Data from 11 gated communities were analysed and the average garden footprint area was found to be 36% of the total plot area. Gated community homes with a garden area smaller than 100 m2 were found to have limited influence on monthly water consumption, while the water use of gated community homes with a larger garden footprint area increased proportionally with garden footprint area. The seasonal fluctuation of water use is illustrative of garden irrigation and other outdoor water use. The results provided useful input for incorporation in outdoor water use modelling of gated community homes
Keywords: garden irrigation household water consumption plot are
A tool to increase information-processing capacity for consumer water meter data
CITATION: Jacobs, H. E. & Fair, K. A. 2012. A tool to increase information-processing capacity for consumer water meter data. South African Journal of Information Management, 14(1), Art.#500, doi:10.4102/sajim.v14i1.500.The original publication is available at http://www.sajim.co.zaBackground: Water service providers invoice most South African urban consumers for the water they use every month. A secure treasury system generates water invoices at municipalities’ financial departments. Information about the water usage of customers initially comes from reading the water meters, usually located in gardens near the front boundaries of properties. Until as recently as 1990, the main purpose of the water meter readings was to generate invoices for water usage. There are various treasury systems for this purpose.
Objective: The objective of this research article was to describe the development of Swift, a locally developed software tool for analysing water meter data from an information management perspective, which engineers in the water field generally use, and to assess critically the influence of Swift on published research and industry. This article focuses on water usage and the challenge of data interchange and extraction as issues that various industries face.
Method: This article presents the first detailed report on Swift. It uses a detailed knowledge review and presents and summarises the findings chronologically.
Results: The water meter data flow path used to be quite simple. The risk of breaches in confidentiality was limited. Technological advances over the years have led to additional knowledge coming from the same water meter readings with subsequent research outputs. However, there are also complicated data flow paths and increased risks. Users have used Swift to analyse more than two million consumers’ water meter readings to date. Studies have culminated in 10 peer-reviewed journal articles using the data. Seven of them were in the last five years.
Conclusion: Swift-based data was the basis of various research studies in the past decade. Practical guidelines in the civil engineering fraternity for estimating water use in South Africa have incorporated knowledge from these studies. Developments after 1995 have increased the information processing capacity for water meter data.http://www.sajim.co.za/index.php/SAJIM/article/view/500Publisher's versio
PCNA Ubiquitination Is Important, But Not Essential for Translesion DNA Synthesis in Mammalian Cells
Translesion DNA synthesis (TLS) is a DNA damage tolerance mechanism in which specialized low-fidelity DNA polymerases bypass replication-blocking lesions, and it is usually associated with mutagenesis. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae a key event in TLS is the monoubiquitination of PCNA, which enables recruitment of the specialized polymerases to the damaged site through their ubiquitin-binding domain. In mammals, however, there is a debate on the requirement for ubiquitinated PCNA (PCNA-Ub) in TLS. We show that UV-induced Rpa foci, indicative of single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) regions caused by UV, accumulate faster and disappear more slowly in Pcna(K164R/K164R) cells, which are resistant to PCNA ubiquitination, compared to Pcna(+/+) cells, consistent with a TLS defect. Direct analysis of TLS in these cells, using gapped plasmids with site-specific lesions, showed that TLS is strongly reduced across UV lesions and the cisplatin-induced intrastrand GG crosslink. A similar effect was obtained in cells lacking Rad18, the E3 ubiquitin ligase which monoubiquitinates PCNA. Consistently, cells lacking Usp1, the enzyme that de-ubiquitinates PCNA exhibited increased TLS across a UV lesion and the cisplatin adduct. In contrast, cells lacking the Rad5-homologs Shprh and Hltf, which polyubiquitinate PCNA, exhibited normal TLS. Knocking down the expression of the TLS genes Rev3L, PolH, or Rev1 in Pcna(K164R/K164R) mouse embryo fibroblasts caused each an increased sensitivity to UV radiation, indicating the existence of TLS pathways that are independent of PCNA-Ub. Taken together these results indicate that PCNA-Ub is required for maximal TLS. However, TLS polymerases can be recruited to damaged DNA also in the absence of PCNA-Ub, and perform TLS, albeit at a significantly lower efficiency and altered mutagenic specificity
Strange Messages: Chemical and Thermal Freeze-out in Nuclear Collisions
Thermal models are commonly used to interpret heavy-ion data on particle
yields and spectra and to extract the conditions of chemical and thermal
freeze-out in heavy-ion collisions. I discuss the usefulness and limitations of
such thermal model analyses and review the experimental and theoretical
evidence for thermalization in nuclear collisions. The crucial role of
correlating strangeness production data with single particle spectra and
two-particle correlation measurements is pointed out. A consistent dynamical
picture for the heavy-ion data from the CERN SPS involves an initial
prehadronic stage with deconfined color and with an appreciable isotropic
pressure component. This requires an early onset of thermalization.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figures, talk given at Strange Quark Matter '98, Padova,
Italy, 20-24 July 1998, to be published in J. Phys. G 25; final version with
updated reference
Parton energy loss in an expanding quark-gluon plasma: Radiative vs collisional
We perform a comparison of the radiative and collisional parton energy losses
in an expanding quark-gluon plasma. The radiative energy loss is calculated
within the light-cone path integral approach. The collisional energy loss is
calculated using the Bjorken method with an accurate treatment of the binary
collision kinematics. Our numerical results demonstrate that for RHIC and LHC
conditions the collisional energy loss is relatively small in comparison to the
radiative one. We find an enhancement of the heavy quark radiative energy loss
as compared to that of the light quarks at high energies.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figure
DISTO data on Kpp
The data from the DISTO Collaboration on the exclusive pp -> p K+ Lambda
production acquired at T_p = 2.85 GeV have been re-analysed in order to search
for a deeply bound K- pp (= X) state, to be formed in the binary process pp ->
K+ X. The preliminary spectra of the DeltaM_{K+} missing-mass and of the M_{p
Lambda} invariant-mass show, for large transverse-momenta of protons and kaons,
a distinct broad peak with a mass M_X = 2265 +- 2 MeV/c^2 and a width Gamma_X =
118 +- 8 MeV/c^2.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures. Talk presented at the "10th International
Conference on Hypernuclear and Strange Particle Physics" (HYP-X), Tokai,
Ibaraki, Japan, September 14th-18th, 2009. To appear in the proceeding
Indication of a deeply bound compact K-pp state formed in the pp -> p Lambda K+ reaction at 2.85 GeV
We have analyzed data of the DISTO experiment on the exclusive pp -> p Lambda
K+ reaction at 2.85 GeV to search for a strongly bound compact K-pp (= X) state
to be formed in the pp -> K+ + X reaction. The observed spectra of the K+
missing-mass and the p Lambda invariant-mass with high transverse momenta of p
and K+ revealed a broad distinct peak with a mass M_X = 2265 +- 2 (stat) +- 5
(syst) MeV/c2 and a width Gamma_X = 118 +- 8 (stat) +- 10 (syst) MeV.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Hypermutation of Immunoglobulin Genes in Memory B Cells of DNA Repair–deficient Mice
To investigate the possible involvement of DNA repair in the process of somatic hypermutation of rearranged immunoglobulin variable (V) region genes, we have analyzed the occurrence, frequency, distribution, and pattern of mutations in rearranged Vλ1 light chain genes from naive and memory B cells in DNA repair–deficient mutant mouse strains. Hypermutation was found unaffected in mice carrying mutations in either of the following DNA repair genes: xeroderma pigmentosum complementation group (XP)A and XPD, Cockayne syndrome complementation group B (CSB), mutS homologue 2 (MSH2), radiation sensitivity 54 (RAD54), poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP), and 3-alkyladenine DNA-glycosylase (AAG). These results indicate that both subpathways of nucleotide excision repair, global genome repair, and transcription-coupled repair are not required for somatic hypermutation. This appears also to be true for mismatch repair, RAD54-dependent double-strand–break repair, and AAG-mediated base excision repair
K Meson Production in the Proton-Proton Reaction at 3.67 GeV/c
The total cross section of the reaction has been determined
for proton--proton reactions with . This represents the
first cross section measurement of the channel near
threshold, and is equivalent to the inclusive cross section at
this beam momentum. The cross section determined at this beam momentum is about
a factor 20 lower than that for inclusive meson production at
the same CM energy above the corresponding threshold. This large difference in
the and meson inclusive production cross sections in proton-proton
reactions is in strong contrast to cross sections measured in sub-threshold
heavy ion collisions, which are similar in magnitude at the same energy per
nucleon below the respective thresholds.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures Phys. Lett. B in prin
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Elevated APOBEC3B Correlates with Poor Outcomes for Estrogen-Receptor-Positive Breast Cancers
Recent observations connected DNA cytosine deaminase APOBEC3B to the genetic evolution of breast cancer. We addressed whether APOBEC3B is associated with breast cancer clinical outcomes. APOBEC3B messenger RNA (mRNA) levels were related in 1,491 primary breast cancers to disease-free (DFS), metastasis-free (MFS), and overall survival (OS). For independent validation, APOBEC3B mRNA expression was associated with patient outcome data in five additional cohorts (over 3,500 breast cancer cases). In univariate Cox regression analysis, increasing APOBEC3B expression as a continuous variable was associated with worse DFS, MFS, and OS (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.20, 1.21, and 1.24, respectively; all P < .001). Also, in untreated ER-positive (ER+), but not in ER−, lymph-node-negative patients, high APOBEC3B levels were associated with a poor DFS (continuous variable: HR = 1.29, P = .001; dichotomized at the median level, HR = 1.66, P = .0002). This implies that APOBEC3B is a marker of pure prognosis in ER + disease. These findings were confirmed in the analyses of five independent patient sets. In these analyses, APOBEC3B expression dichotomized at the median level was associated with adverse outcomes (METABRIC discovery and validation, 788 and 706 ER + cases, disease-specific survival (DSS), HR = 1.77 and HR = 1.77, respectively, both P < .001; Affymetrix dataset, 754 ER + cases, DFS, HR = 1.57, P = 2.46E-04; NKI295, 181 ER + cases, DFS, HR = 1.72, P = .054; and BIG 1-98, 1,219 ER + cases, breast-cancer-free interval (BCFI), HR = 1.42, P = 0.0079). APOBEC3B is a marker of pure prognosis and poor outcomes for ER + breast cancer, which strongly suggests that genetic aberrations induced by APOBEC3B contribute to breast cancer progression. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi: 10.1007/s12672-014-0196-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users
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