Defining a relevant architecture in South Africa

Architecture in South Africa is at a crossroads. Afteryears of repression and isolation during which contemporary architecture lost its way, there is now a desperate need for architects to respond to the social a nd cultural challenges of a society riven by massive material contrasts. Within architecture schools, a student body more representative of society than hitherto is engaged in projects which reflect the very diverse needs of the community. Central to the effectiveness of such teaching programmes is the presence of teachers fully engaged in practice, creating a responsible architecture fora renewed nation

Casimir force on amplifying bodies

Based on a unified approach to macroscopic QED that allows for the inclusion of amplification in a limited space and frequency range, we study the Casimir force as a Lorentz force on an arbitrary partially amplifying system of linearly locally responding (isotropic) magnetoelectric bodies. We demonstrate that the force on a weakly polarisable/magnetisable amplifying object in the presence of a purely absorbing environment can be expressed as a sum over the Casimir--Polder forces on the excited atoms inside the body. As an example, the resonant force between a plate consisting of a dilute gas of excited atoms and a perfect mirror is calculated

Digital NFATc2 Activation per Cell Transforms Graded T Cell Receptor Activation into an All-or-None IL-2 Expression

The expression of interleukin-2 (IL-2) is a key event in T helper (Th) lymphocyte activation, controlling both, the expansion and differentiation of effector Th cells as well as the activation of regulatory T cells. We demonstrate that the strength of TCR stimulation is translated into the frequency of memory Th cells expressing IL-2 but not into the amount of IL-2 per cell. This molecular switch decision for IL-2 expression per cell is located downstream of the cytosolic Ca2+ level. Here we show that in a single activated Th cell, NFATc2 activation is digital but NF-κB activation is graded after graded T cell receptor (TCR) signaling. Subsequently, NFATc2 translocates into the nucleus in an all-or-none fashion per cell, transforming the strength of TCR-stimulation into the number of nuclei positive for NFATc2 and IL-2 transcription. Thus, the described NFATc2 switch regulates the number of Th cells actively participating in an immune response

Applicability of no-fines concrete as a road pavement

Considerable research has been conducted on environmentally sustainable development. This has lead to the use of no-fines concrete in place of conventional concrete and asphalt surfaces. This material dramatically reduces environmental degradation and the negative effects associated with urban sprawl. No-fines concrete has been used as an effective method for treating and reducing negative environmental impacts. Problems plagued the initial development, with the pores becoming clogged and stopping the water from passing through, causing ponding and reducing the skid resistance of the road surface. The second problem was concerned with the unsightly ravelling that occurs on the surface shortly after construction and the unsafe perception that this creates. This thesis analyses the effectiveness of no-fines concrete in pavement applications. This was achieved by analysing the properties and characteristics of no-fines concrete. The performance of no-fines concrete was compared with a concrete sample that is comparable to the material used for the construction of conventional concrete road pavements

The Impact of Fiscal Incentives on The Brazilian Northeast

259 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1982.Brazil's Northeast has historically been the poorest region in the country. In 1958 the Superintendency for the Development of the Northeast (SUDENE) was created to coordinate and promote the region's economic development. SUDENE's principal policy tool to increase the growth rate of the Northeast's income has been the Article 34/18 tax or fiscal incentives which were designed to attract private investment into the region. Throughout the 1960's similar fiscal incentive programs were introduced to attract resources to other regions or sectors of the Brazilian economy, resulting in a system of tax exemptions and subsidies which compete for the attentions of taxpayers and investors. Although several of the individual incentive programs have been examined in earlier research, no study has considered the effects on the Northeast's growth and development of this expansion of the fiscal incentive system.The study's findings show that the 1967 expansion of the incentive system to include the fishing, tourism and reforestation sectors resulted in a shift of corporate deductions away from the 34/18 incentive program. Despite this shift, however, the fiscal incentive system resulted in a new flow into the Northeast of investment funds totaling over CR$ 7.2 billion which increased the Northeast's 1964 industrial capital stock by over 400%.While showing that the incentive system's investments limited the decline of the Northeast's income share, the macroeconomic analysis identified three principal reasons for this decline: (1) the unbalanced regional income multipliers; (2) the insufficient level of non-incentive-induced investment in the Northeast relative to the rest of Brazil; and (3) the changes in the fiscal incentive system following the system's expansion.The incentive system's investments within the Northeast have tended to worsen the region's distributional problems. The study's analysis shows that the inter-state distribution of the incentive system's investments contributed to the increased inequality of the inter-state income distribution which occurred between 1960 and 1970. Finally it is shown that the tax deduction mechanism used by Brazil's fiscal incentive system may have contributed to the increased inequality in the personal income distribution.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD

The role of education in development: an educationalist’s response to some recent work in development economics

This paper delves beneath the widespread belief that education (often repackaged as human capital) is important in development to consider the role that the discipline of education plays in shaping the wider discourses of development. In particular, it will explore recent texts by important figures in development economics (Collier, Easterly, Sachs and Stiglitz) to see what they say (and don’t say) about education’s role in development and to contrast this with educationalists’ accounts. This will lead on to a consideration of what the implications of such a reading are for the field of international and comparative education. The paper concludes that the relative marginalisation of educational accounts in mainstream development thinking is a major challenge to which international and comparative education needs to respond