Feasibility Study Of The Queen's University Wave Energy Device

In order to assess the Queen's University device on a more realistic basis than in 1978 it has been found expedient to adopt a point absorbing device which is directly moored to the sea bed via a rigid tension leg system (shown schematically in Fig. 1). This type of mooring effectively restricts the heave motion of the device and as a consequence it corresponds closely with the fixed canopy tests which have been carried out in our upgraded test facility over the past 2 months. These tests have shown excellent repeatibility and the extraction efficiencies have been found to be considerably greater than those for the J 978 device. It was therefore considered logical at this time to concentrate our efforts on this system especially as it was estimated that the costs of moorings and overall structures would not be appreciably altered from those for a less restrained device. The other alternative of assessing a device based on the estimated drop-off in extraction efficiency, which would occur if the canopy was not fully fixed against heave motion was abandoned for this feasibility study as it would have been based on too many uncertainties. In the near future when the appropriate series of model tests on the flexible mooring system have been carried out it is intended that a comparative feasibility study will be made. At this time it is important to emphasise that the hydrodynamic model studies have not as yet yielded the optimum configuration for the form of device being considered this year and as a consequence the overall costs are still likely to be pessimistic. It is in this context and on the understanding that the consultants will attempt to take these consideration s into account that the team embarked on this further feasibility study. The main objectives of this study were to: ( 1) obtain an approximate overall estimate of the cost of the latest form of the QUB device for use in comparison with other wave energy devices and with conventional thermal power systems. and (2) assess the relative contributions of moorings, structures, electrical and turbine to the cost of the overall system. As in 1978 the device team does not consider that a comprehensive submission can be made at this time. However, attempts have been made to produce more realistic general arrangement drawings of the proposed structure and a more detailed appraisal has been made of possible mooring arrangements and the generation and transmission system

Local economic development debates in South Africa

What is Local Economic Development (LED)? What would ‘pro-poor’ LED consist of in South Africa? Are residual anti-poor strategies still being pursued? This report examines these questions and explores the still emerging discipline of LED in the context of globalisation. The context is important because since globalization intensified two decades ago there has been extraordinary pressure on municipalities to become more entrepreneurial. ‘Smokestack chasing’ was the main way in which they reacted to globalisation pressures, to the detriment of each other. The ‘race to the bottom’ witnessed elected officials offering major concessions on taxes and municipal services, often at the expense of their rate base and their citizens’ welfare. In particular, concern about the erosion of ‘public goods’ – whether local (e.g., women’s inequality soared) or global (public health epidemics) – has emerged in the wake of this period of intense globalisation. Many experts acknowledge that the prior focus on purely market-determined economic development, accompanied by appeals for foreign investment by national and local leaders, led to Local Economic Underdevelopment. ‘Sustainable development’ is back on the agenda – and not only because South Africa will host the World Summit on Sustainable Development in August 2002. South Africa’s recent LED Policy Paper has also come to decry old-fashioned smokestack-chasing strategies, including “the packaging of subsidies, tax holidays, and free infrastructure/services oriented to attracting outside industry.” Instead, the Department of Provincial and Local Government promotes six “developmental” LED strategies: community-based development; linkage; human capital development; infrastructure and municipal services; leak-plugging in the local economy; and retaining and expanding local economic activity. The old-fashioned strategies are also still evident, however, especially in “Export Processing Zones” (EPZs) “Industrial Development Zones” (IDZs), and “Spatial Development Initiatives” (SDIs) which are characterised by their top-down character, extremely high costs per job created (often in excess of R1 million), lack of inter-relationships with downstream/ upstream industries, very little employment potential and adverse prospects for women workers. One reason for ongoing state support for SDIs is the prevalance of corporate power in decision-making; another is that the tough work entailed in mapping out alternative strategies has not yet been attempted by most municipalities. That work requires sensitivity to local poverty, and calculations about economic benefi ts derived by poor people from municipal services provision. In addition to gender equality, improved public health, lower levels of racial segregation, and improved social capital, a renewed commitment to municipal infrastructure investment and service delivery would have enormous positive economic implications for job creation, worker productivity and small enterprise promotion. For example, for every 100 households that are connected to the electricity grid, between 10 and 20 new economic activities are started. To achieve bottom-up LED, with all its social and environmental benefi ts, requires an approach to municipal services provision based upon municipal responsibilities to provide at least a basic minimal amount of water/sanitation (50 litres per person per day is the mediumtarget in the Reconstruction and Development Programme) and electricity (1 kiloWatt hour per capita per day) as a lifeline amount, with higher volume consumption (i.e., following the 50th liter of water) attracting much higher (and rising) tariffs. The fi rst step, however, is for municipalities to commit to pursuing LED from the bottom up, through embracing their own capacities, nurturing and sustaining a more genuinely developmental approach to their local economies, and reversing worsening patterns of uneven development that have followed from decades of pursuing non-developmental approaches

Privatizing Cape Town : service delivery and policy reforms since 1996

This booklet is about the privatization of municipal services such as water, waste and electricity in the city of Cape Town. The term ‘privatization’ is used to cover a range of private sector activities, including outsourcing and the introduction of private sector principles such as performance -based management and full-cost recovery into service delivery reforms. We also include the corporatization of services in this broad definition. Chapter One argues that there has been a fundamental shift away from the ‘statist’ service delivery models of the past where the state subsidized and delivered municipal services (albeit in a racially-biased manner), towards a more ‘neoliberal’ service delivery model where the private sector (and private sector principles) dominate. In the latter model, the state acts as a service ‘ensurer’ rather than a service ‘provider’ – in the now-fashionable language of the World Bank – and municipal services are ‘run more like a business’, with financial cost recovery becoming the most important measure of performance. The chapter is based on extensive interviews with senior city managers and politicians, as well as a review of relevant policy documents, political party position papers and an evaluation of council activities since the first democratic elections in 1996. Chapter Two provides a detailed account of the increasing commercialization of water in Cape Town, with a focus on current efforts to corporatize the service into a ring-fenced business unit. Although different from the outright divestiture of state assets in that the city retains control and ownership of water facilities, corporatization nevertheless raises many of the same concerns about access and affordability as privatization and introduces many of the same profit-oriented motives and operating principles. It is also often the first step towards outright privatization. This chapter provides an overview of the city’s water corporatization plans followed by a list of concerns as to their appropriateness for Cape Town, the most important of which relate to issues of accountability and regulation, the continued fragmentation of service delivery decision making, heightened pressures for cost recovery, and the process by which the corporatization proposals have been developed. Underlying much of this discussion is the argument that neither the promise nor the potential of public sector reform have been achieved in Cape Town. Contrary to written guarantees on the part of the African National Congress (ANC) that the public sector would be the ‘preferred service provider’, local ANC councils have failed to adequately explore the public sector option and have actively promoted privatization and corporatization. The other major political parties in Cape Town – the Democratic Party (DP) and the New National Party (NNP) – have been equally unwilling to explore and promote public sector reform but have been open about their private sector preferences. So too have senior municipal managers, many of whom are responsible for the daily operation and decision making of service delivery in the city. It is at this level of the civil service that the most concrete (albeit unofficial and ad hoc) expression of privatization and corporatization is to be found. Our objective with this report is to document – for the first time since the end of apartheid – both the scale and character of privatization initiatives in Cape Town and to situate these policy changes within the broader national and international policy-making environment on service delivery. There are different opinions on privatization in Cape Town, and we attempt to capture these nuances in our analysis, but there is an overwhelmingly pro-privatization philosophy, representing a shift in policy orientation as profound as any that Cape Town has experienced in its long and tumultuous history. That this ideological shift should be discussed, and its relevance to service delivery in Cape Town debated, is the motivation for this report

Recovery after intensive care dataset

This excel dataset guided part of the interview discussion in a qualitative study about recovery after discharge from ICU. The study explored patients views about their recovery at six and twelve months and factors that facilitated recovery, and determined additional services that patients felt were missing during their recovery

Simple direct formation of self-assembled N-heterocyclic carbene monolayers on gold and their application in biosensing

CRL acknowledges the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (UK) for the funding of his PhD studentship (EP/M506631).The formation of organic films on gold employing N-heterocyclic carbenes (NHCs) has been previously shown to be a useful strategy for generating stable organic films. However, NHCs or NHC precursors typically require inert atmosphere and harsh conditions for their generation and use. Herein we describe the use of benzimidazolium hydrogen carbonates as bench stable solid precursors for the preparation of NHC films in solution or by vapour-phase deposition from the solid state. The ability to prepare these films by vapour-phase deposition permitted the analysis of the films by a variety of surface science techniques, resulting in the first measurement of NHC desorption energy (158±10 kJ mol−1) and confirmation that the NHC sits upright on the surface. The use of these films in surface plasmon resonance-type biosensing is described, where they provide specific advantages versus traditional thiol-based films.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Mortality and pulmonary complications in patients undergoing surgery with perioperative SARS-CoV-2 infection: an international cohort study

Background: The impact of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) on postoperative recovery needs to be understood to inform clinical decision making during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. This study reports 30-day mortality and pulmonary complication rates in patients with perioperative SARS-CoV-2 infection. Methods: This international, multicentre, cohort study at 235 hospitals in 24 countries included all patients undergoing surgery who had SARS-CoV-2 infection confirmed within 7 days before or 30 days after surgery. The primary outcome measure was 30-day postoperative mortality and was assessed in all enrolled patients. The main secondary outcome measure was pulmonary complications, defined as pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome, or unexpected postoperative ventilation. Findings: This analysis includes 1128 patients who had surgery between Jan 1 and March 31, 2020, of whom 835 (74·0%) had emergency surgery and 280 (24·8%) had elective surgery. SARS-CoV-2 infection was confirmed preoperatively in 294 (26·1%) patients. 30-day mortality was 23·8% (268 of 1128). Pulmonary complications occurred in 577 (51·2%) of 1128 patients; 30-day mortality in these patients was 38·0% (219 of 577), accounting for 81·7% (219 of 268) of all deaths. In adjusted analyses, 30-day mortality was associated with male sex (odds ratio 1·75 [95% CI 1·28–2·40], p\textless0·0001), age 70 years or older versus younger than 70 years (2·30 [1·65–3·22], p\textless0·0001), American Society of Anesthesiologists grades 3–5 versus grades 1–2 (2·35 [1·57–3·53], p\textless0·0001), malignant versus benign or obstetric diagnosis (1·55 [1·01–2·39], p=0·046), emergency versus elective surgery (1·67 [1·06–2·63], p=0·026), and major versus minor surgery (1·52 [1·01–2·31], p=0·047). Interpretation: Postoperative pulmonary complications occur in half of patients with perioperative SARS-CoV-2 infection and are associated with high mortality. Thresholds for surgery during the COVID-19 pandemic should be higher than during normal practice, particularly in men aged 70 years and older. Consideration should be given for postponing non-urgent procedures and promoting non-operative treatment to delay or avoid the need for surgery. Funding: National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain and Ireland, Bowel and Cancer Research, Bowel Disease Research Foundation, Association of Upper Gastrointestinal Surgeons, British Association of Surgical Oncology, British Gynaecological Cancer Society, European Society of Coloproctology, NIHR Academy, Sarcoma UK, Vascular Society for Great Britain and Ireland, and Yorkshire Cancer Research