Place branding of seaports in the Middle East

This paper analyses seaports’ brand personalities as a means of understanding similarities and differences of these important locations and their relationship with their host place image. Drawing upon Aaker’s (J Mark Res 34:347–356, 1997) brand personality construct, the study presents lexical analysis from the websites of nine seaports in the Middle East. Each seaport’s website is content analysed, and the brand personality is measured using Aaker’s (1997) framework and Opoku’s (Licentiate Thesis, Lulea University of Technology, ISSN, 1402-1757, 2005) dictionary of synonyms. Findings show that seaports have developed a level of isomorphism upon particular dimensions of brand image; however, the findings also show the most distinctive seaports were linking their seaport to their place brand. In particular, the findings show only the Port of Jebel Ali has a clear and distinctive brand personality and to a lesser extent the Ports of Sohar, Shahid Rajee and Khor Fakkan. The research has important management implications of branding for public diplomacy and demonstrates seaport brand positioning in relation to place branding, used to inform public communication and marketing

Chapitre 14: Phytopathogènes et stratégies de contrôle en aquaponie

peer reviewedAmong the diversity of plant diseases occurring in aquaponics, soil-borne pathogens, such as Fusarium spp., Phytophthora spp. and Pythium spp., are the most problematic due to their preference for humid/aquatic environment conditions. Phytophthora spp. and Pythium spp. which belong to the Oomycetes pseudo-fungi require special attention because of their mobile form of dispersion, the so-called zoospores that can move freely and actively in liquid water. In coupled aquaponics, curative methods are still limited because of the possible toxicity of pesticides and chemical agents for fish and beneficial bacteria (e.g. nitrifying bacteria of the biofilter). Furthermore, the development of biocontrol agents for aquaponic use is still at its beginning. Consequently, ways to control the initial infection and the progression of a disease are mainly based on preventive actions and water physical treatments. However, suppressive action (suppression) could happen in aquaponic environment considering recent papers and the suppressive activity already highlighted in hydroponics. In addition, aquaponic water contains organic matter that could promote establishment and growth of heterotrophic bacteria in the system or even improve plant growth and viability directly. With regards to organic hydroponics (i.e. use of organic fertilisation and organic plant media), these bacteria could act as antagonist agents or as plant defence elicitors to protect plants from diseases. In the future, research on the disease suppressive ability of the aquaponic biotope must be increased, as well as isolation, characterisation and formulation of microbial plant pathogen antagonists. Finally, a good knowledge in the rapid identification of pathogens, combined with control methods and diseases monitoring, as recommended in integrated plant pest management, is the key to an efficient control of plant diseases in aquaponics.Cos

Rapid technical assessment and troubleshooting of rural water supply systems

Providing the rural poor with safe drinking water has been a national priority for the South African government since 1994, in line with the internationally embraced millennium development goals. After more than a decade of sustained and significant investment, it is time to address the sustained efficiency of the multitude of rural water supply systems that had been built. This paper reports on a proposed framework for allowing the rapid assessment of such a small rural water supply system. The framework hinges upon four criteria, namely the availability of a water source in terms of quality as well as quantity; the capacity to distribute the water from the source to the consumer in terms of pump, pipeline and tank sizes; the continuity of the system over time as a measure of distribution reliability; and the condition of the system in terms of diligent maintenance and repair. For each of these criteria, practical indicators had to be identified which can be quantified during a short site visit, requiring a minimum of prior knowledge. With numerical estimates for each of the indicators, the indicators can then be appropriately weighted and combined into a single index for each of the criteria. This paper provides the details of how the index for condition was calculated. The proposed methodology was applied to fifteen small villages in rural Venda to demonstrate its utility. Not only could the systems be rapidly ranked in terms of their relative performance, but the reasons for their non-performance, where applicable, could be pinpointed. Where availability was a problem, the problem was predominantly the drying up of boreholes, with unacceptable water quality encountered in two cases - these defects can only be corrected with substantial engineering input and investment. Capacity was not a serious problem, except for insufficient storage in some cases. The largest problem was the lack of continuity caused by poor operation, arguments about the payment of fuel, and unacceptable repair times for broken equipment - problems that should be easy to correct through better management practices. The condition of the systems, all relatively new, was still good although the taps were generally in poor condition, caused by a combination of installing taps of poor quality in the first place, and a lack of scheduled replacement and rehabilitation. Overall, the proposed methodology offers great promise as a simple, rapid benchmarking tool for water supply authorities responsible for rural water supply systems. Copyright ASCE 2009

A tool for technical assessment of rural water supply systems in South Africa

Water and sanitation services provide a cost-effective solution for alleviating the impact of water-borne diseases. Actually, for water supply projects a top-down approach is followed, giving priority to deliver sufficient quantities of water, increasing its availability by investment in new systems. Little attention is paid to the functioning of these systems on the long-term, and its maintenance and operational constraints. In this paper, a methodology was developed to technically assess water supply systems based on four criteria, namely availability, capacity, continuity and condition. The practicality of the approach is demonstrated by a technical assessment of a number of water supply systems in the Vhembe District in South Africa. The systems consist of piped distribution systems with public standpipes, mostly fed by groundwater. In general, it can be concluded that the performance of the systems, although relatively new, is poor. The availability (criterion 1) of the drinking water is a problem due to poorly constructed boreholes or disagreement on the payment of the operational cost after construction. In most villages the capacity (criterion 2) of the installed infrastructure is sufficient, although storage volume is in some villages too small. The continuity (criterion 3) of the water supply is threatened by disputes about payment of diesel for the pump and maintenance and repair of the pump. Finally, the condition (criterion 4) is poor mostly due to taps at the standpipes which are damaged and require frequent replacement. Despite the simplicity of the proposed assessment methodology, it provides rapid insight in the state of a system and is ideal for bench marking the performance of different systems in different regions. Furthermore, the quantitative measures of the four different criteria allow system operators and planners to rapidly pinpoint the reasons for poor performance and to take the appropriate corrective action. The used weighting factors in this demonstration are arbitrary – different users could adapt them to their own specific situations without invalidating the overall approach to technical assessment suggested in this paper