The Roles of Actors and Institutions in South Africa’s Ambitions of Becoming a ‘Developmental State’

The importance of development partnerships have become more pronounced in the modern age and presents opportunities for all actors to gain credibility in their respective spheres (corporations for healthy public image, governments for their ability to deliver and attract economic investment/growth, and activists or NGOs for visibility and association with policy). How actors and institutions coalesce or separate given the conditions for advocacy, investment and advancement is of importance in a globalized a de facto inter-dependant world. Whether or not multi-lateral partnerships are successful depends in large part on the conditions set and influenced by governments. As a regional superpower and strategic point of access for many investors, South Africa’s continuing economic decline is made all the more salient given its connectivity to the global economy (Habib: 2003)

Variations in Produced Water Chemistry and Relation to Regional Geology and Production in the Marcellus Shale, Northcentral West Virginia

An investigation of 74 Marcellus Shale wells across northcentral West Virginia indicates changes in produced water chemistry and quantity can be related to geologic conditions based on well logs and core data. These changes are determined by reviewing multiple produced water analyses for individual wells for periods up to ten years. Results show variations among the areas in this study. From west to east across central Harrison County to central Taylor County, then north into Monongalia County, gamma-ray logs show increasing intensity, especially in the middle and lower Marcellus. XRD mineralogy from core data shows increasing clay content from west to east with associated decreases in quartz. Produced water analyses show increases in barium concentrations from west to east, typically associated with increasing shale/clay minerals. Additionally, produced water samples show decreasing calcium and strontium concentrations moving west to east, suggesting that increased carbonate content, possibly as carbonate cement, is present in the western-most study areas. The geological differences across the area results in variations in produced water behaviors. Total dissolved solids (TDS) concentrations typically reach their maximum value during the second year of production. After this time, areas in Harrison County showed both increasing and decreasing TDS concentrations, while areas in Taylor and Monongalia showed almost exclusively decreasing concentrations over time. With TDS concentrations dropping below the maximum values, relative ratios of formation water vs. fracturing fluid can be determined in a given well as it ages. Normalized, cumulative gas production for these wells showed that the geologic differences observed in the produced water are reflected in different production rates across the study area

Promoting Freedom Through Problem-Based Learning

Problem-based learning (PBL) is an instructional tool for encouraging active thinking about realistic problems and making sense of them through multiple content-focused lenses. It also has the power to bring faculty together in support of academic and social goals for students. Using a case-study approach, we share the story of a rural school district’s faculty and administrators who decided to implement a school-wide, week-long PBL activity. We focus on the social studies component of the PBL activity, describing the initial decisions teachers made to create this project, the planning teachers completed throughout the semester leading up to it, and students’ experiences across the week of PBL. Finally, we share suggestions about how other teachers and school districts can leverage PBL instruction in support of the New Ohio Learning Standards (ONLS) for social studies

Modeling hydrodynamic self-propulsion with Stokesian Dynamics. Or teaching Stokesian Dynamics to swim

We develop a general framework for modeling the hydrodynamic self-propulsion (i.e., swimming) of bodies (e.g., microorganisms) at low Reynolds number via Stokesian Dynamics simulations. The swimming body is composed of many spherical particles constrained to form an assembly that deforms via relative motion of its constituent particles. The resistance tensor describing the hydrodynamic interactions among the individual particles maps directly onto that for the assembly. Specifying a particular swimming gait and imposing the condition that the swimming body is force- and torque-free determine the propulsive speed. The body’s translational and rotational velocities computed via this methodology are identical in form to that from the classical theory for the swimming of arbitrary bodies at low Reynolds number. We illustrate the generality of the method through simulations of a wide array of swimming bodies: pushers and pullers, spinners, the Taylor=Purcell swimming toroid, Taylor’s helical swimmer, Purcell’s three-link swimmer, and an amoeba-like body undergoing large-scale deformation. An open source code is a part of the supplementary material and can be used to simulate the swimming of a body with arbitrary geometry and swimming gait

Wind boom, wind bust : an examination of the conditions and policies that led to Germany's wind industry and Canada's lack thereof

This examination focuses on the supply conditions that affect federal political leaders' will and ability to create incentives that stimulate private investment in their nations' wind industry. Operating from a political economy approach rooted in institutional theory I investigate and compare the conditions, between 1970 and 2004, that influenced German and Canadian federal political leaders' motivation and capacity to design wind energy incentives for the private sector. I begin with a brief introduction that highlights the significance of this topic within the context of advanced industrial countries' policy landscape. I then outline and qualify my methodological and theoretical choices for this investigation. A detailed analysis of the supply conditions affecting German federal political leaders' willingness and ability to create wind energy incentives follows. I subsequently assess the supply conditions affecting Canadian federal political leaders' willingness and ability. I conclude by suggesting that political pressure on German leaders to address the climate change challenge valorized their perception of wind turbines, which in turn catalyzed their will to create attractive incentives for private investment in the wind industry. Conversely, the political and economic benefits for Canadian leaders to deregulate energy markets coupled with the low degree of political concern pertaining to climate change during the mid-1980s restricted their willingness. In both case studies federal political leaders' ability to implement their will was determined by the level of cooperation they received from political, energy and financial organization

The influence of massive open online courses on youth job search behaviour: an explorative case study of Durban youths.

Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.This study attempts to merge South African job search behaviours with massive open online course (MOOC) literature in an attempt to discover what effects online certification can have on youth outlooks and job search behaviour. This dissertation begins with a literature review of each component, followed by a practical longitudinal study, comprising 15 unemployed youths from a local Durban area, over 16 weeks in a pre and post-study period. The attitudes and world outlooks of these youths is assessed through interview data, with suggestions for local, regional and national programs in South Africa for utilising MOOCs as a tool for addressing youth unemployment and achieving the human capital development necessary for taking advantage of the country’s demographic dividend

Towards the poetic

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1989.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 159-163).Born out of a concern for the world, this philosophy of artifact makes a case for a particular way of making. It is a search for things which mediate between ourselves and the earth. It is a search for those things which allow us to dwell, for things that anchor our belonging. It is a search for things which are formed from a principle which is a cultural, a historical, formed from something deep within us. Moreover it is an explanation, better still a belief about what we are about. I am not going to talk about poetry or literature per se. I will be talking about poetry as the springing point from which 1 will talk about our works. I will look at the nature of things. the things we make mediate between the earth and ourselves in some way. In each things we make we can read our relationship to the earth, or non-relationship as the case may be in our present alienating world. These things gather the earth and ourselves together and make sense by our willing. For anything to be born into the void, the distance between us and the earth there must be an idea, a thought. We concertize those images in the thing, to be anchored and made real. In creating these things we have the power to bring to the thing values we consider worthwhile. This essay will be a case for those values which allow belonging to occur, which makes dwelling possible. To return to poetry, or rather the poetic let us look at language for a time. In ordinary language we use naming to make the world understandable and precise. We can begin to communicate reality through this naming. Thus language anchors our existence and is tied to the things by this act of naming. Poetry, however, transcends this connection. It brings about meaning through the juxtaposition of different things. It creates its meaning by association and by metaphor (translation), bringing it alive in another way. It becomes a thing in itself. It stands on its own, outside of ordinary language, it mediates between reality and us. It is not tied to a thing as a name is, rather it brings earth and humanity together, it mediates just as a thing does. It becomes a living thing in its own right revealing for us the earth and us to the earth. And so to architecture that is truth, an architecture that echoes and mirrors reality, illuminates its existence and allows for dwelling. In a way this is a search for truth via the artifact. Dwelling depends on belonging which in turn depends on reality and our knowing of it, particularly as truth. I hope to show a way which lies beneath our false constructions to achieve that which has been elusive, a sense of belonging in order that I might find ground upon which I can truly build.by Noel Jonathan Brady.M.S

Environmental aesthetics and rewilding

This paper explores the practice of rewilding and its implications for environmental aesthetic values, qualities and experiences. First, we consider the temporal dimensions of rewilding in regard to the emergence of particular aesthetic qualities over time, and our aesthetic appreciation of these. Second, we discuss how rewilding potentially brings about difficult aesthetic experiences, such as the unscenic and the ugly. Finally, we make progress in critically understanding how rewilding may be understood as a distinctive form of ecological restoration, while resisting the assimilation of rewilding into wilderness discourses