Aiton Court: Relocating Conservation between Poverty and Modern Idealism

Aiton Court, in Johannesburg, is a case study in how heritage and economics clash in economically constrained cities. This iconic and formally innovative Modern apartment block from 1937 is located in an area where the income levels of tenants are now very low. Although the building is protected by legislation, the viability of its restoration is being further tested by a rent boycott. The article covers the building’s history, and questions how to approach its conservation differently, given the strong demand for housing at a cost level that would be excluded by purely market–led gentrification. We propose that locating conservation strategies in relation to the building’s history and to other subsidies aimed at the public good may provide other routes to preserving Aiton Court

Studies on growth rates in pigs and the effect of birth weight

End of project reportThe purpose of this study was to assess some environmental and management factors that affect growth performance on commercial pig units. In experiment 1, a survey was carried out on 22 pig units of known growth performance in south-west Ireland to compare management factors between those showing poor and good growth rates. Low growth rate appears to be due to the cumulative effect of a combination of factors. Experiment 2 was conducted to determine the effects of providing an additional feeder on performance of weaned piglets. No benefits were recorded. Feed consumed from the additional feeder was a replacement for feed that otherwise would have been consumed from the control hopper feeder. Experiment 3 was designed to determine if pig performance and efficiency of growth were affected by weight at birth and at weaning. Lightweight pigs showed inferior growth performance up to the finisher period. Although they compensated some of the inferior growth towards the time of slaughter, they never reached the weights of the heavy birth-weight animals. Males were either significantly heavier or tended to be heavier than females throughout. There was no significant difference between the sexes in the number of days to slaughter. Light and heavy pigs did not differ in the levels of IGF-1 in their blood plasma; however lightweight pigs had significantly lower IgG preweaning. Experiment 4 aimed to determine whether piglet birth weight influenced growth performance, plasma IGF-1 concentrations and muscle fibre characteristics at day 42 of life. At slaughter (Day 42) light birth weight pigs were significantly (P < 0.001) lighter. Plasma IGF-1 concentration was lower by 28% (P=0.06) in light pigs. Muscle fibre cross sectional area and total fibre number were not significantly different between groups. This study should be repeated with bigger numbers

Aiton Court: Relocating Conservation between Poverty and Modern Idealism

Aiton Court, in Johannesburg, is a case study in how heritage and economics clash in economically constrained cities. This iconic and formally innovative Modern apartment block from 1937 is located in an area where the income levels of tenants are now very low. Although the building is protected by legislation, the viability of its restoration is being further tested by a rent boycott. The article covers the building’s history, and questions how to approach its conservation differently, given the strong demand for housing at a cost level that would be excluded by purely market–led gentrification. We propose that locating conservation strategies in relation to the building’s history and to other subsidies aimed at the public good may provide other routes to preserving Aiton Court

Promoting new venture formation by the unemployed

Excessive levels of unemployment exist in many South African communities (www.statssa.gov.za) alongside low levels of entrepreneurial behaviour (GEM Report, 2006). This is true even when South African figures are compared to figures from similar developing countries (GEM Report, 2006; Urban, 2006). This thesis looks for reasons why this situation exists and examines possible solutions by considering the motivation to create new ventures alongside contemporary theories of work motivation. It considers those theories in light of the known depressing effects that unemployment has on an individual (Darity et al, 1996; Feather, 1992; McKee-Ryan et al, 2005; Rodriguez, 1997; Shamir, 1986; Vansteenkiste et al, 2004; Vansteenkiste et al, 2005) in order to gain a better understanding of why entrepreneurship is not flourishing in South Africa’s unemployed communities. The motivation to form a new venture is vital to new venture formation (Herron&Sapienza, 1992; Douglas et al, 1994; Wennekers and Thurik, 1999; Wiklund et al, 2003; Segal et al, 2005) but is under-considered in many programmes aimed at encouraging entrepreneurship. Where the psychologically depressing effects of unemployment have reduced an individual’s intrinsic motivation to form a new venture, a structured environment should be created to facilitate the early stages of new venture formation. Individuals should be extrinsically motivated to achieve goals until the benefits of accumulated achievements have countered those depressive effects and traditional venture formation theories once again become valid.Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010.Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS)unrestricte

A Survey of Perioperative and Postoperative Anesthetic Practices for Cesarean Delivery

The aim of this survey was to review cesarean delivery anesthetic practices. An online survey was sent to members of the Society of Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology (SOAP). The mode of anesthesia, preferred neuraxial local anesthetic and opioid agents, postoperative analgesic regimens, and monitoring modalities were assessed. 384 responses from 1,081 online survey requests were received (response rate = 36%). Spinal anesthesia is most commonly used for elective cesarean delivery (85% respondents), with 90% of these respondents preferring hyperbaric bupivacaine 0.75%. 79% used intrathecal fentanyl and 77% used morphine (median [range] dose 200 mcg [50–400]). 91% use respiratory rate, 61% use sedation scores, and 30% use pulse oximetry to monitor for postoperative respiratory depression after administration of neuraxial opioids. Postoperative analgesic regimens include: nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory agents, acetaminophen, oxycodone, and hydrocodone by 81%, 45%, 25%, and 27% respondents respectively. The majority of respondents use spinal anesthesia and neuraxial opioids for cesarean delivery anesthesia. There is marked variability in practices for monitoring respiratory depression postdelivery and for providing postoperative analgesia. These results may not be indicative of overall practice in the United States due to the select group of anesthesiologists surveyed and the low response rate

Cognitive UAS Path-Planning for Large Spatial Search

Search and Rescue/Destroy missions are some of the most high-risk situations in modern engineering. Every mission nearly always presents a life or death scenario for one or more individuals, with the penalty for failure often being human lives. Modern Search and Rescue/Destroy missions implement the use of autonomous systems in the form of giving an unmanned autonomous aerial system(s) the task of searching a given area in the attempt of discovering one or more objects of interest. Though this ingenuity has already benefited the line of work, these unmanned systems are still not being used to their full potential. Some means of planning how to search the area must be developed, with the most basic means of accomplishing this task being creating a predefined path which is guaranteed to cover all known areas. To increase the rate of success and decrease necessary search time, a pseudo-random search method, known as meta-heuristics, is used to develop a new path planning algorithm to search the field in an intelligent manner. This work develops a means of turning meta-heuristic optimization into a cognitive navigation with autonomous path-planning algorithm that is decoupled from apriori information, with minimal requirements for initiation. To account for the higher performance requirements of such a method, novel guidance methods were developed to meet said demands. Simulations suggest that the proposed search method performs better on average than the current accepted basis