Is commercial livestock farming environmentally viable within the Orange and Fish River catchment area (OFCA) of Southern Namibia?

Includes bibliographical references.There are neither historical nor current baseline information relating to the productivity of the OFCA veld and a definite link between the current crisis and the possibly that it is suffering from the effects of having farmed the OFCA veld into a state of durable suboptimal productivity remains to be conclusively established. This current study has been undertaken in order to investigate such a possible link, and to reach a more definite conclusion with regards to the contribution of negative environmental feedback which may have arisen from commercial farming. Specifically, the study investigates the relationship between commercial livestock grazing regimes, possible associated resource degradation (losses in veld productivity and adverse structuring of botanical communities due to livestock grazing effects), and the current productive crisis within the sector

Disclosure of information concerning remedies against directors’ liability

Why do some corporations decide to voluntarily disclose information regarding a granted exclusion or limitation of internal liability and indemnification for external liability and a concluded directors’ and officers’ liability insurance in contrast to others? In order to explain why some corporations disclose more information on this topic than others, first, the literature on liability of directors, remedies against these liabilities and motives for voluntary disclosure is researched. After that, empirical research is performed to determine if listed corporations in The Netherlands significantly differ in disclosing information regarding a granted indemnification clause and a concluded directors’ and officers’ liability insurance

The use of stereolithography and related technologies to produce short run tooling

ThesisWhere material properties are critical to a polymer part, rapid prototype (RP) models are inappropriate for evaluation purposes and actual parts moulded in a range of materials are required for evaluation. Conventional tool making processes have extremely long lead times considering that numerous iterations may be required. The aim of this project was to generate polymer parts, utilising various approaches to Rapid Tooling (RT) , including Stereolithography or related technologies, as part of the process. The objective was to establish decision-making criteria for deciding on the appropriateness of various processes and the risks involved to assist prospective users of these technologies. The first phase of the project focused on the process validation of utilising Stereolithography as a direct means to generate injection mould tooling inserts, which were fitted into an injection mould designed for the trial purposes. The objective was to obtain process information with regard to insert generation for Stereolithography. A three dimensional model of the part was generated with CAD and the associated mould was generated around the part. The insert halves were processed and solid epoxy inserts were generated with the 3D Systems SLA500 Stereolithography machine. These inserts were post-finished and fitted to the injection mould . Additional features were added to the inserts to test cooling and gating and wear resistance of the cavity material. The author attended the basic injection tool setting course of the Plastics Federation to enable him to contribute more directly to this process. This also highlighted some of the design issues to facilitate ease of production . Initial difficulties were experienced in finding optimal process parameters. A total of 70 parts were produced, with measurable insert degradation. During the author's training at 3D Systems in the USA, he obtained additional insight in current methods of insert modelling and insert generation. If these process problems could be overcome, it would be possible to produce in excess of a 100 parts with one set of inserts, assuming a tolerance specification of 0.2mm. The cost of producing the inserts was approximately 50% that of conventional tooling fabrication . The time lapse between growing of the inserts and production of parts was one week compared to 6 to 8 weeks tool manufacture time with conventional methods. The second phase of the project focused on methods to enhance the cavity surface. Electroplating of inserts and inserts generated from Aluminium filled epoxy were tested , to investigate the effects that plating has on tool life, dimensional accuracy, temperature distribution, and the cost implications for these subsequent process steps. Stereolithography inserts were generated, taking into account the design considerations. Aluminium filled epoxy inserts were subsequently cast from silicone moulds drawn off the Stereolithography master patterns. Two sets of Stereolithography inserts were plated with 20 ~m of electrolytic nickel plating. One set of aluminium filled epoxy inserts were plated with electrolytic copper followed by electroless nickel. The mould sets were subjected to the same injection moulding trials using Polypropylene. The third phase of the project evaluated the use of Stereolithography investment casting masters to produce tool steel inserts, through the QuickCast process. Porosity was evident, with substantial machining required to fit the inserts. Not all the detail was retained during the casting process. Thin rib features on the part were thus lost. Due to the porosity the cooling was changed to copper tubes fitted into the rear of the tool and back-filled with aluminium epoxy. As the Stereolithography patterns were not polished the metal inserts had to be hand finished. This was a time consuming process and skill is required to obtain a good finish. A cost comparison indicated that machining aluminium inserts would be more cost effective. The tool manufacture time and eventual cost is not significantly less than conventional machining . In fact, trials with aluminium High speed CNC machining proved to be more time, finish and cost effective. This is discussed as part of the trial examples. Wax injection into AIM tooling was investigated on behalf of a client, with good results . As ceramic and polymer injection are very similar, apart from the ceramic being far more abrasive, it is the author's opinion that AIM tooling would be applicable, taking into account that fewer parts may be achieved. The KelTool process was also investigated during the author's USA visit. The licensing fees and additional equipment are extremely costly due to the Rand IDollar exchange rate. Issues related to this process are documented in this report. Clearly the deciding factors remain the quantity of parts required and the complexity of form. Each manufacturing process has a certain level of risk involved. Accumulative risk not only sets manufactured parts at risk but could jeopardise project time scales and iterations of a process have significant impact on a project budget

Decentralisatie: maatwerk of uniformiteit? Het Wmo-beleid van Nederlandse gemeenten

A main motive for policy decentralization is the belief that municipalities are better able to customize public policy to local circumstances, and to realize made-to-measure service provision. In this respect, the introduction of the Social Support Act (Wmo) is an interesting example. With the lack of ‘vertical’ accountability obligations to the national government, the Wmo is governmentally innovative. Whether the decentralization results in customized forms of social support is a fascinating one because a detailed reading of the Wmo and its implementation displays possible incentives as well as barriers to made-to-measure service provision. The empirical exploration in this article uses data from the 2007-2009 evaluation of the Wmo conducted by the Netherlands Institute for Social Research (SCP). The evaluation shows that municipalities involve diverse stakeholders in formulating Wmo policy, and that their involvement seems to lead to customized service provision. At the same time, municipalities follow nationwide models, and information provided by the central government seems to have a major impact on local social care policy. The article concludes with an outlook on future directions in local debates on social care and the recommendation to give time for major decentralization trajectories such as the Wmo

Onverenigbaarheidslijst laanbomen al ruim een jaar leidraad voor de teler

Eind 2008 lag er dan eindelijk de langverwachte laanbomenlijst van ent-onderstamcombinaties met een kans op (uitgestelde) onverenigbaarheid. Sindsdien geldt deze unieke lijst, compleet met adviezen over welke vermeerderingsmethoden wel geschikt en toepasbaar zijn, als hét standaardwerk voor menig laanboomteler. Met name de jongere generatie heeft er baat bij, aldus vermeerder- en entspecialist Gerrit Schalk uit Lienden

Eindrapportage Cultuurwaardeonderzoek laanbomen 2004-2008

Dit onderzoeksproject beoogt enerzijds de tevredenheid van afnemers van laanbomen te vergroten door versterking van de kwaliteit van het laanbomen sortiment; en anderzijds veelbelovende nieuwigheden in het laanbomen sortiment bijeen te brengen en te toetsen op cultuurwaarde. Het project wil daarmee de productie van een gezond en vernieuwend sortiment stimuleren en de afzet ervan in binnen- en buitenland bevorderen. Het project had twee hoofddoelen: A. Verzamelen en voor de sector beschikbaar maken van objectieve informatie met betrekking tot gebruiksproblemen van laanbomen die door maatregelen in de cultuurfase kunnen worden voorkomen. B. Bijeenbrengen en toetsen op cultuurwaarde van veelbelovende vernieuwingen in het sortiment. Bij de beoordeling van het te onderzoeken sortiment is speciaal aandacht besteed aan de hedendaagse eisen die een belangrijke rol spelen, met name op het terrein van ziektegevoeligheid; dan wel resistentie of tolerantie voor plagen en ziekten

Crow legt onverenigbaarheid laanbomen in lijst vast

Iedereen in het vak kent inmiddels het voorbeeld van Quercus frainetto op onderstam Quercus robur. Hét bekende voorbeeld van onverenigbaarheid, waarbij vroeg of laat de entpartner van de onderstam loslaat. Onverenigbaarheid is dus niet alleen een probleem in de kwekerijfase, maar kan zich ook op latere leeftijd manifesteren. Dan wordt de eindgebruiker met het probleem geconfronteerd met alle mogelijke gevolgen van dien. Niet alleen om uitval van bomen en daarmee gepaard gaande kosten te voorkomen, maar met name ook steeds meer vanwege de zorgplicht van gemeenten voor hun bomen is het van groot belang om (uitgestelde) onverenigbaarheid te voorkomen door bomen op de juiste wijze te vermeerdere

Refactoring facial expressions: an automatic analysis of natural occurring facial expressions in iterative social dilemma

Many automatic facial expression recognizers now output individual facial action units (AUs), but several lines of evidence suggest that it is the combination of AUs that is psychologically meaningful: e.g., (a) constraints arising from facial morphology, (b) prior published evidence, (c) claims arising from basic emotion theory. We performed factor analysis on a large data set and recovered factors that have been discussed in the literature as psychologically meaningful. Further we show that some of these factors have external validity in that they predict participant behaviors in an iterated prisoner’s dilemma task and in fact with more precision than the individual AUs. These results both reinforce the validity of automatic recognition (as these factors would be expected from accurate AU detection) and suggest the benefits of using such factors for understanding these facial expressions as social signals

ORTEC Predicts the Payback Period for its Workforce Scheduling Software

ORTEC is a Netherlands-based software company selling decision support systems based on operations research models. One of her products is HARMONY, a workforce scheduling package. We developed a model to predict its return on investment for a specific customer. The model uses a database of reference implementations to find organizations that are similar to the prospective customer’s organization. The costs and benefits have been broken down into several factors and we use this detailed information from the reference implementations to create a prediction of the return on investment for the workforce scheduling package. Using the information from the reference set allows us to move from industry-averages for potential savings to a prediction of potential savings based on the actual experiences from similar organizations. This also makes the model transparent: the outcomes can be traced to the elements that were selected from the reference set and a detailed description of the model is available. The model has been implemented successfully at ORTEC and has been of decisive value for several prospective customers. From the data analysis it appears that organizations can save a lot both on the time needed for planning and on the amount of personnel needed. In most cases, the payback time of the OR software was less than one year