Prevalence of emotional, physical and sexual abuse of women in three South African provinces

Introduction. There is growing recognition in the ranks of the South African government that violence against women is a serious problem facing us all. Until now data on the epidemiology of violence against women in South Africa have been scanty. This report presents the findings of the first major community-based prevalence study.Objectives. To describe the prevalence of physical, sexual, financial, and emotional abuse of women.Methods. A cross-sectional study conducted in the Eastern Cape (EC), Mpurnalanga (MP) and the orthern Province (NP). The sample included one randomly selected woman aged 18 - 49 years living in each of 2 232 households. The sample was drawn using stratified, multistage, random methods, and 1 306 questionnaires were completed, giving a,90.3% response rate after adjusting for households without an eligible woman.Results. The prevalences of ever having been physically abused by a current or ex-partner were 26.8% (EC), 28.4% (MP) and 19.1% (NP). The prevalences of abuse in the last year were 10.9% (EC), 11.9% (MP) and 4.5% (NP). The prevalences of rape were 4.5% (EC), 7.2% (MP) and 4.8% (NP). Considerable emotional and financial abuse was also reported, e.g. the prevalences of a partner having boasted about or brought home girlfriends in the previous year were 5.0% (EC), 10.4% (MP) and 7.0% (NP). The prevailences of physical abuse during a pregnancy were 9.1% (BC), 6.7% (MP) and 4.7% (NP). The proportions of abused women who were injured in the year before the survey were 34.5% (EC), 48.0% (MP) and 60% to (NP).Conclusions. This study is the first large-scale, communitybased prevalence study to be undertaken in South Africa The main findings are that emotional, financial and physical abuse are common features of relationships and that many women have been raped. Physical violence often continues during pregnancy and constitutes an important cause of reproductive morbidity. Many women are injured by their partners and considerable health sector resources are expended providing treatment for these injuries

The heating performance of air-source-heat-pumps in the retrofit of domestic buildings

The adoption of Air-to-Water Heat Pumps (AWHPs) is a promising retrofit strategy for reducing heating energy consumption and decarbonizing domestic heating in temperate climates. In this paper, an AWHP with supplementary electric heating has been employed as a retrofit heating strategy for 756 house archetypes, which have been selected to represent the housing stock of the North-East region of England. The objective of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of the AWHP system in terms of both the system’s energy use and the extent to which the system has sufficient capacity to meet the space heating demand of the buildings. As a result of the study, the paper reveals that only 482 house archetypes (with their current level of thermal insulation) are eligible for the AWHP retrofit

Evolving rules-based control

An approach to control non-linear objects based on evolving Rule-based (eR) models is presented in the paper. Fuzzy rules, representing the structure of the controller are generated based on data collected during the process of control using newly introduced technique for on-line identification of Takagi-Sugeno type of fuzzy rule-based models. Initially, the process is supposed to be controlled for few time steps by any other conventional type of controller (P, PID or a fuzzy one with a fixed structure determined off-line). Then, in on-line mode the output of the plant under control (including its dynamic) and the respective control signal applied has been memorised and stored. These data has been used to train in a non-iterative way the eR model representing the fuzzy controller, which aim is to control the plant at a given set point. The indirect adaptive control approach has been used in combination with the newly introduced on-line identification technique based on unsupervised learning of antecedent and consequent parts separately. This approach exploits the quasi-linear nature of Takagi-Sugeno models and builds-up the control rule-base structure and adapts it in on-line mode. The method is illustrated with an example from air-conditioning systems, though it has wider potential applications

The big BIM battle: BIM adoption in the UK for large and small companies.

As BIM adoption continues, the goal of a totally collaborative model with multiple contributors is attainable. Many initiatives such as the 2016 UK government level 2 BIM deadline are putting pressure on the construction industry to speed up the changeover. Clients and collaborators have higher expectations of using digital 3D models to communicate design ideas and solve practical problems. Contractors and clients are benefitting from cost saving scheduling and clash detection offered by BIM. Effective collaboration on the project will also give speed and efficiency gains. Despite this, many businesses of varying sizes are still having problems. The cost of the software and the training provides an obvious barrier for micro-enterprises and could explain a delay in adoption. Many studies have looked at these problems faced by SME and micro-enterprises. Larger companies have different problems. The efforts made by government to encourage them are quite comprehensive, but is anything being done to help smaller sectors and keep the industry cohesive? This limited study examines several companies of varying size and varying project type: architectural design businesses, main contractor, structural engineer and building consultancy. The study examines the barriers to a truly collaborative BIM workflow facing different specialities on a larger project and a contrasting small/medium project. The findings will establish that different barriers for each sector are actually pushing further apart, thus potentially creating a BIM-only construction elite, leaving the small companies remaining on 2D based drawing

Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA): The Weak Environmental Dependence of Quasar Activity at 0.1 \u3c z \u3c 0.35

Understanding the connection between nuclear activity and galaxy environment remains critical in constraining models of galaxy evolution. By exploiting the extensive cataloged data from the Galaxy and Mass Assembly survey, we identify a representative sample of 205 quasars at 0.1 \u3c z \u3c 0.35 and establish a comparison sample of galaxies, closely matched to the quasar sample in terms of both stellar mass and redshift. On scales \u3c1 Mpc, the galaxy number counts and group membership of quasars appear entirely consistent with those of the matched galaxy sample. Despite this, we find that quasars are ∼1.5 times more likely to be classified as the group center, indicating a potential link between quasar activity and cold gas flows or galaxy interactions associated with rich group environments. On scales of ∼a few Mpc, the clustering strengths of both samples are statistically consistent, and beyond 10 Mpc, we find no evidence that quasars trace large-scale structures any more than the galaxy control sample. Both populations are found to prefer intermediate-density sheets and filaments to either very high-density environments or very low-density environments. This weak dependence of quasar activity on galaxy environment supports a paradigm in which quasars represent a phase in the lifetime of all massive galaxies and in which secular processes and a group-centric location are the dominant triggers of quasars at low redshift

Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA): The Weak Environmental Dependence of Quasar Activity at 0.1< z <0.35

Understanding the connection between nuclear activity and galaxy environment remains critical in constraining models of galaxy evolution. By exploiting extensive catalogued data from the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey, we identify a representative sample of 205 quasars at 0.1 < z < 0.35 and establish a comparison sample of galaxies, closely matched to the quasar sample in terms of both stellar mass and redshift. On scales <1 Mpc, the galaxy number counts and group membership of quasars appear entirely consistent with those of the matched galaxy sample. Despite this, we find that quasars are ∼1.5 times more likely to be classified as the group center, indicating a potential link between quasar activity and cold gas flows or galaxy interactions associated with rich group environments. On scales of ∼a few Mpc, the clustering strength of both samples are statistically consistent and beyond 10 Mpc we find no evidence that quasars trace large scale structures any more than the galaxy control sample. Both populations are found to prefer intermediate-density sheets and filaments to either very high-or very low-density environments. This weak dependence of quasar activity on galaxy environment supports a paradigm in which quasars represent a phase in the lifetime Corresponding author: Clare F. Wethers [email protected] 2 Wethers et al. of all massive galaxies and in which secular processes and a group-centric location are the dominant trigger of quasars at low redshift