Urban identity in post-apartheid Soweto

Faculty of Social science School of Geography 0214462v [email protected] research report is an examination of urban identity in post-apartheid Soweto, using the SECC as a case study. The report examines the emergence of the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee (SECC), one of a number of post-apartheid social movements in urban areas around South Africa. The SECC have emerged in response to the policy of cost-recovery and cut-offs in the provision of services to poor communities in Johannesburg, and have also managed to tap into a broader discourse of anti-privatisation. While the SECC maintain a political agenda, and are affiliated to a number of overtly political organisations such as the Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF), I argue in this report that the SECC affirm a particular set of post-apartheid identities. This set of identities is constituted within a very particular relationship to place; the SECC emerged and lives in Soweto. Through the everyday activities in the branches of the SECC members of the SECC actively construct themselves and the places in which they live. The report draws on a literature that has considered the emergence of social movements in Latin American and post-colonial cities since the 1980s. This literature argues that social movements contest not only the material conditions but also the cultural and symbolic order of space and the city. The report then considers how the SECC is constituted across different scales. These different scales of movement activity represent a potential tension within the organisation between the leadership and the branches of the SECC. It is in the branches that the SECC exists from day to day, and it is in the branches that a strong sense of place is constructed through the everyday activities of the SECC branch. The report concludes that the everyday practices of the SECC at the scale of the local branches are part of a broader process of remaking place and identity in postapartheid Soweto

Lateral Dynamics of Multiple Trailer Trucks in Windy Environments

The lateral response of three-trailer commercial vehicles has been assessed using the simulation package TruckSimTM. Aerodynamic and mechanical characterizations for the vehicle were developed for this investigation. Simulations were carried out with various aerodynamic and load configurations with several different arbitrarily defined crosswinds. The aerodynamic configurations were tested in constant and random crosswinds. The load configurations were tested only in random crosswinds. Each aerodynamic configuration differed by the aerodynamic side-force coefficient for the trailers. Each load configuration consisted of reducing the payload in a single trailer. The tractor was identically defined for each load and aerodynamic configuration. Increasing the aerodynamic side-force coefficient for trailer 1 decreased the lateral displacement of the vehicle. Decreasing the aerodynamic side-force coefficient of trailer 1 increased the lateral displacement of the vehicle. This was observed for both constant and random crosswinds. Increasing or decreasing the aerodynamic side-force coefficient of trailers 2 and 3 increases or decreases (respectively) the relative displacement of each trailer to its preceding unit. Reducing the payload for trailer 1 by 50% (while leaving the remaining trailers fully loaded) dramatically reduced the lane displacement. Reducing the payload by 50% in trailers 2 and 3 resulted in performance nearly identical to that of a fully loaded vehicle. Driver workload was assessed from random crosswind simulations in the categories of mental effort, physical effort and path error. The vehicle, as expected, became more difficult to drive with increased average wind speed. Configurations exhibiting smaller lane displacements usually resulted in reduced physical workload but not necessarily reduced mental workload

Informality, Infrastructure and the State in Post-Apartheid Johannesburg

The central argument of this thesis is that the spatiality of encounter between state and citizenship in post-apartheid South Africa is unequal and discontinuous. Although the developmental postapartheid state remains a powerful political narrative, the existence of what have been called 'informal' modes of association and organisation suggests that this imagination has not completely permeated post-apartheid society. Based on a case study of 'informal' street traders in inner city Johannesburg, I argue in this thesis that in fact a very particular state geography is emergent in post-apartheid South Africa: using a theoretical literature that includes state theory, govemmentality studies and critical post-colonial geography I suggest that mutual imaginations of state and citizenship intersect in particular nodes of encounter. In a context where the institutions of state have neither a coherent nor a singular view of everyday associational life in the city, the Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality has developed a strategy of building formal market places in an attempt to intersect the informal networks that most street traders are implicated into. Markets such as the high-profile Metro Mall in the inner city of Johannesburg therefore serve as nodes of encounter between state and citizens, or what Law (2004) might refer to as Obligatory Points of Passage. Through these markets, the municipality has attempted to encourage traders to imagine themselves as responsible entrepreneurs, and to therefore implicate traders into new networks of association that allow traders to share in an imagination of the post-apartheid developmental state. However, these encounters do not always produce predictable outcomes, and I demonstrate how the Metro Mall serves also as a context for traders to represent to the municipality different expectations of citizenship

Rethinking Disability in the Private Sector: Report from the Panel on Labour Market Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities

In July 2012, the Government of Canada appointed a panel to consult with private sector employers, as well as other organizations and individuals, on the labour market participation of people with disabilities. The panel members were asked to identify successes and best practices in the employment of people with disabilities, as well as the barriers faced by employers, and to report on their findings. In-person and telephone consultations were conducted with almost 70 employers, and feedback was received from approximately 130 online submissions. Responses came from organizations of all sizes across the country and in a broad range of industry sectors. Findings were shared anonymously with a number of national non-profit organizations and business associations to determine if they resonated with other stakeholders. While the consultations were the main focus of the panel’s efforts, research was also conducted into the business case associated with hiring people with disabilities in Canada and other jurisdictions. This report is directed at Canadian private sector employers, and offers the following findings: Many companies are doing great things, but more education and training are needed (see “Employers speak”). While most of the companies we heard from showed a genuine desire to hire people with disabilities, education and training are required to overcome barriers, dispel myths and put theory into practice. As the examples of forward-thinking Canadian companies and their best practices testify, there is significant experience available on which to build. Hiring people with disabilities is good for business. (see “Understanding the business case”). We heard this from senior and experienced business leaders who recognize the value of an inclusive work environment. Although mainly intuitive, their beliefs are supported by the performance of corporate diversity leaders on the capital markets, as well as data on employee retention and productivity. It is noteworthy that in 57 percent of cases, no workplace accommodation is required for people with disabilities. In the 37 percent of cases reporting a one-time cost to accommodate an employee with a disability, the average amount spent is $500. The keys to success are leadership and effective community partnerships (see “Making it work for you”). To increase employment among people with disabilities and access the related benefits, tone from the top and the actions of leaders are imperative. Also critical is identifying community partners who fully understand the business’s talent needs and are committed to customer service. To help organizations begin the process of engaging and employing talented people with disabilities, this section also includes a list of initiatives called “Getting started.

Liquidscapes of the city

The liquid reality of the urban has been often explored in the field of urban political ecology, which has considered the ways in which the city is actually stitched together or pulled apart by the physical flows of liquids, the submerged city made of pipes, tubes and sewers, a hidden network in which the drinkable and the wasted liquids intersect and flow asymmetrically. Many of these works have been crucial in embedding water in socio-political relations. However, often at the cost of reducing water to said relations, falling short of attending to water’s agentic capacity, failing to consider the encounter between those socio-political relations and the materiality of the liquid itself. Usually framed through questions of power, inequality, consumption and cultural meaning, rarely these studies have engaged with the materiality and agency of urban liquids and, most crucially, with their essential capacity to overflow. In this propositional piece, we ask the question: what does it mean to think the city through its overflows?info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The effect of diameter on the film boiling behavior of liquid nitrogen

A film boiling heat transfer study was conducted for liquid nitrogen at atmospheric pressure. The heat transfer surfaces used were cylinders with outside diameters of 0.450, 0.650, 0.850, and 1.000 inches. The temperature differences covered were from approximately 150ºF to approximately 600ºF. The data indicate that the heat flux will decrease to a minimum then increase slightly as the diameter of the heat transfer element is increased at constant temperature difference. The heat transfer coefficient is expected to approach a flat plate correlation as the diameter approaches infinity --Abstract, page ii

Africa in Brazil: Cultural Politics and the Candomble Religion

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Invisible Johannesburg seen and unseen: an exploration of the imaged/imagined city

ABSTRACT: This project has two main aims. The first and primary aim is to produce a body of paintings, which take the urban landscape of Johannesburg as subject matter. These works aim to articulate through the processes of painting the visible and invisible city, aspects of the social/urban environment that can be seen or recognised, and those that are obscured or hidden. Through an examination of african urban theory and various tropes of understanding the city, the notiot of the invisible city is revealed. The research then progresses on to an exploration of way the city has been pictured by various painters and photographer