Soil and water criteria and indicators for the sustainable management of industrial plantations.

Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1999.No abstract available

Two approaches to rural sanitation delivery: case study of Kwa Zulu-Natal, South Africa

Sanitation service delivery in South Africa is directly linked to the history of the country. The number of households lacking basic sanitation services in 2001 was approximately 4.7 million. This amounts to approximately 18 million people or 42% of the population. During August 2000 to June 2001, South Africa experienced one of the worst cholera epidemics in the country’s recent history. The outbreak was linked to outbreaks in Mozambique, Swaziland and Zambia. By December 2002, South Africa had reported a total of 151 852 cholera cases. The efforts to combat the epidemic involved government at all levels and included interventions such as access to potable water, sanitation, and education. This paper compares the conventional approach to sanitation which was implemented before the cholera outbreak to the accelerated approach which evolved in the KwaZulu-Natal Province as a result of the outbreak

The effect of hygiene communication on emptying of urine diversion toilets

Diarrhoeal disease is a major concern to the South African government. Understanding the relationship between the lack of water and sanitation and diarrhoeal disease, the government has developed a national initiative to provide poor and rural communities with a basic sanitation facility, one of which is a Urine Diversion toilet. This paper includes assessment of the effectiveness of hygiene messages on vault emptying behaviours and the possible transfer of pathogens to hands during emptying processes. The method involve observation of vault emptying behaviours, interviews with key stakeholders and microbiological analysis of indicator species on hands before and after vault emptying. The results indicated that health and hygiene messages were not actioned by the study group and that there was no significant difference between the E-Coli and Faecal coliforms on the hands before and after emptying Conclusions from the study were that correct operation and maintenance of Urine Diversion toilet require, health and hygiene education programmes to be ongoing and continue beyond the life of the project

The development of a novel balance platform for concussion assessment

Balance dysfunction has been recognised as a key marker of concussion for many years. Whilst this measure has been exploited within concussion assessments, current balance procedures are expensive, and laboratory-constrained or inexpensive, but subjective. The present study focused on developing an objective, inexpensive tool to assess balance utilizing Virtual Reality (VR) to induce a perturbation and a Wii Balance Board (WBB) to measure the response. The first part of this thesis focused on constructing a VR-WBB system to determine its validity when assessing balance. Notably, piloting confined the VR component of the system was effective in inducing perturbation and further, the WBB could adequately quantify the response by obtaining sensitive centre of pressure (COP) data. The second prut of this thesis focused on refining this prototype, assessing how an individual's balance would be affected by speed-manipulated and axismanipulated perturbations. Current studies highlighted that manipulating axes and speed of perturbation significantly affected the COP response, which has profound implications when developing the optimal VR-WBB tool. Overall this thesis confirms that the VR- WBB prototype is an effective system to induce a perturbation and obtain quantifiable balance responses. With further parameter refinement, this tool could be revolutionary for pitchside assessment of concussion

The design and development of a sanitation hand washing dispenser: a South African case study

South Africa is a country of extremes where many people in rural areas still lack basic services such as water and sanitation. It is estimated that 5 million South Africans do not have access to basic water services, while 17-18 million lack basic sanitation services. South Africa launched the WASH programme with one of the aims to increase the incidence of hand washing at the right times such that it results in a significant decrease in the incidence of water-related diseases. This paper looks at hand washing behvaviour in villages in two municipalities in South Africa and shows the technology development which evolved out of the difficulties being experience by households in the country to meet these basic hand washing requirements

Piloting a method to evaluate the implementation of integrated water resource management in the Inkomati River Basin

This paper provides an assessment of the implementation of principles of integrated water resource management (IWRM) in the Inkomati River Basin (IRB), shared by South Africa, Swaziland and  Mozambique. A methodology with a set of principles, change areas and measures was developed as a performance assessment tool. The tool was piloted in the IRB and results from the application were used to refine and finalise the tool. Piloting of the tool did provide very useful insights into IWRM  implementation in the IRB and highlighted gaps where future attention needs to focus. Good progress has been realised with respect to creating the enabling environment and institutional frameworks as the key principles of IWRM have been successfully articulated in policy and legislation and a relatively satisfactory degree of stakeholder participation achieved. Measures related to the IWRM implementation instruments seem to be the least developed, particularly the financial enabling environment and institutional capacity building change areas. More attention also needs to be paid to conflict resolution mechanisms. The results from the pilot also showed that countries should consider a phased approach to assessment of IWRM, as implementation does seem to follow a process of creating the enabling environment, followed by formulating and implementing the institutional framework and creation and application of IWRM management instruments.Keywords: Integrated water resource management, Inkomati River Basin, South Africa, Swazilan

A critique of approaches to measuring effective hand washing in Mpumalanga, South Africa

Diarrhoeal disease was ranked fifth on the list of causes of premature mortality in South Africa in 2000. High standards of hygiene and access to safe water and sanitation services can be related to a reduced risk of diarrhea. Based on the understanding and interpretation of good sanitation, hygiene and related practices in South Africa, all sanitation programmes and interventions in the country focus to some degree on hand washing practices and behaviours. Health and hygiene interventions are implemented from the knowledge that hand washing can act as a barrier to several of the transmission routes of diarrhoeal pathogens. As a result, many sanitation interventions in South Africa begin with a baseline assessment which includes a review of present sanitation, hygiene and related practices. This paper focuses specifically on the measurement of one aspect of health and hygiene awareness in South Africa, namely hand washing behaviours. The paper is a critique of methods used in assessing these household behaviours in two villages in the Mpumalanga Province of South Africa

Thermal Tolerances of the Spotted-Wing Drosophila Drosophila suzukii (Diptera: Drosophilidae)

The spotted-wing drosophila (Drosophila suzukii Matsumura) is an invasive species of Asian origin that is now widely distributed in North America and Europe. Because of the female’s serrated ovipositor, eggs are laid in preharvest fruit, causing large economic losses in cultivated berries and stone fruit. Modeling D. suzukii population dynamics and potential distribution will require information on its thermal tolerance. Large summer populations have been found in regions with severe winter conditions, though little is known about responses to prolonged low-temperature exposure. We used controlled chambers to examine D. suzukii fecundity, development rate, and mortality across a range of temperatures encompassing the upper and lower thresholds (5–35°C). Optimal temperatures ( Topt ) were found to be 28.2°C for the development of the egg-to-adult stage, and 22.9°C for reproductive output. No adult eclosion occurred below 8.1°C ( Tlower ) or above 30.9°C ( Tupper ). We also investigated survival outcomes following prolonged (42-d) low-temperature exposure to a simulated cold winter (−5, −3, −1, 1, 3, and 5°C). Adult survival was dependent on temperature, with a mean LT50 of 4.9°C. There were no effects of sex, mating status, geographic strain, and photoperiod preexposure on overwintering survival. Thirty-eight percent of females that were mated prior, but not after, prolonged low-temperature exposure produced viable offspring, suggesting that this species may undergo sperm storage. This study provides data on the thermal tolerances of D. suzukii , which can be used for models of D. suzukii population dynamics, degree-day, and distribution models

Microsatellites for the marsh fritillary butterfly: de novo transcriptome sequencing, and a comparison with amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) markers.

Journal ArticleResearch Support, Non-U.S. Gov'tBACKGROUND: Until recently the isolation of microsatellite markers from Lepidoptera has proved troublesome, expensive and time-consuming. Following on from a previous study of Edith's checkerspot butterfly, Euphydryas editha, we developed novel microsatellite markers for the vulnerable marsh fritillary butterfly, E. aurinia. Our goal was to optimize the process in order to reduce both time and cost relative to prevailing techniques. This was accomplished by using a combination of previously developed techniques: in silico mining of a de novo assembled transcriptome sequence, and genotyping the microsatellites found there using an economic method of fluorescently labelling primers. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: In total, we screened nine polymorphic microsatellite markers, two of which were previously published, and seven that were isolated de novo. These markers were able to amplify across geographically isolated populations throughout Continental Europe and the UK. Significant deviations from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium were evident in some populations, most likely due to the presence of null alleles. However, we used an F(st) outlier approach to show that these markers are likely selectively neutral. Furthermore, using a set of 128 individuals from 11 populations, we demonstrate consistency in population differentiation estimates with previously developed amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) markers (r = 0.68, p<0.001). SIGNIFICANCE: Rapid development of microsatellite markers for difficult taxa such as Lepidoptera, and concordant results with other putatively neutral molecular markers, demonstrate the potential of de novo transcriptional sequencing for future studies of population structure and gene flow that are desperately needed for declining species across fragmented landscapes.BBSRCOkinawa Institute for Science and Technology (OIST