Experimental investigation of a swept-strut fuel-injector concept for scramjet application

Results are presented of an experiment to investigate the behavior at Mach 4 flight conditions of the swept-strut fuel-injector concept employed in the Langley integrated modular scramjet engine design. Autoignition of the hydrogen fuel was not achieved at stagnation temperatures corresponding to a flight Mach number of 4; however, once ignition was achieved, stable combustion was maintained. Pressure disturbances upstream of the injector location, which were caused by fuel injection and combustion, were generally not observed; this indicates the absence of serious adverse combustor-inlet interactions. Mixing performance and reaction performance determined from probe surveys and wall pressure data indicate that high combustion efficiency should be obtained with the combustor length provided in the scramjet engine design. No adverse interaction between the perpendicular and parallel fuel-injection modes was observed

Research to action to address inequities: the experience of the Cape Town Equity Gauge

© 2008 Scott et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licens

Occupational health and safety and the National Public Health Institute of South Africa : deliberations from a national consultative meeting

On 11 November 2015, the National Department of Health (NDoH) published the National Public Health Institute of South Africa (NAPHISA) Draft Bill 2015 for public comment. The aim of the Draft Bill is: '[t]o provide for the establishment of the National Public Health Institute of South Africa in order to conduct disease and injury surveillance and to provide specialised public health services, public health interventions, training and research directed towards the major health challenges affecting the population of the Republic.'http://www.samj.org.zaam2016School of Health Systems and Public Health (SHSPH

Equity Measurement: A case study in Cape Town

Background: In 1994, the democratically elected post-apartheid government inherited a highly fragmented, centralised and inequitable public care service. Much progress has been made in unifying the services, previously divided by race, and establishing a district health system. In Cape Town, a metropolitan area of 3.3 million people, the previous fragmentation of the services has resulted in marked inequity in public primary health care expenditure along racial and geographical lines. The extent of this inequity has not previously been quantifie

Evaluating the effect of wardbased outreach teams on primary healthcare performance in North West Province South Africa: A plausibility design using routine data

Background. North West Province (NWP), South Africa, was an early adopter of the primary healthcare (PHC) ward-based outreach team (WBOT) strategy and has made considerable progress in implementing it. Given the interest in and expectations of greater investment in WBOTs, assessing their impact on and contribution to PHC outputs and health outcomes is becoming increasingly important.Objectives. To describe the application of a plausibility evaluation design for assessing the contribution of WBOTs to PHC performance in NWP, comparing changes in coverage, utilisation and outcome indicators in facilities with and without WBOTs.Methods. Routine data from the District Health Information System on both WBOTs and PHC facilities for the period 2011/12 (prior to implementation) to 2014/15 (3 years after implementation began) were extracted. Analysis involved the following three steps: (i) selection of indicators sensitive to community-based action; (ii) data cleaning; and (iii) comparison of the degree of change in median indicator values between 2011/12 and 2014/15 in facilities with and without WBOTs (a difference-in-differences analysis).Results. Changes in indicator values in facilities were grouped into four categories: (i) indicators where there was greater (statistically significant) improvement in facilities with WBOTs (couple year protection rate, measles immunisation coverage in children aged <1 year, incidence of children aged <5 years with severe diarrhoea with dehydration); (ii) indicators that declined or worsened, but less so in facilities with WBOTs at statistically significant levels (antenatal first visits as a percentage of children born in that year, PHC utilisation rate of children aged <5 years); (iii) indicators that improved in all facilities with no significant difference between facilities with and without WBOTs (antenatal attendance before 20 weeks, prophylactic vitamin A coverage to children aged 12 - 59 months); and (iv) indicators that remained unchanged in all facilities (immunisation coverage in children aged <1 year, postnatal mother visits at 6 days, cervical cancer screening coverage in women aged ≥30 years, PHC utilisation rate of children aged ≥5 years).Conclusion. Notwithstanding the limitations of routine data and the need to approach the findings with caution, this analysis suggests that WBOTs plausibly had some positive effects on the overall performance of the PHC system. We propose a methodology to monitor the performance of WBOTs using routine PHC indicators that programme managers could apply elsewhere.Â

Classroom-BasedFunctional Analysis and Intervention for Students with Emotional/Behavioral Disorders

We conducted functional analyses of disruptive behavior in a classroom setting for two students of typical intelligence with emotional/behavioral disorders (E/BD) using the classroom teacher to implement functional analysis conditions. The functional analyses suggested that both participants\u27 disruptive behavior was maintained by escape from task demands and access to attention. Based on this information, we implemented a DRA procedure in which participants could request either escape or attention while disruption was placed on extinction. DRA decreased the disruptive behavior of both participants and the schedule of reinforcement was successfully thinned to a level that was practical for the classroom teacher to consistently implement

E-research support services: responding to a challenge facing the South African research and information communities

Opportunities for researchers to interact with their global counterparts have improved dramatically since the advent of the knowledge era. To ensure that South Africa continues to meet international standards, the South African national research and development strategy, published in 2002, invited role players to find ways of increasing economic growth and improve the quality of life of all South Africans. Many relatively small, disconnected information projects with various funding streams were initiated to meet this e-Research challenge. However, the authors see a threat to sustainability and the need for a coherent information and knowledge support system and therefore propose a 'Team South Africa' approach, with high-level participation and commitment, to overcome certain current disparities in e-research support across the system and disciplines, that will be to the benefit of all researchers and research groups.