Lack of access to wholesome water is a significant factor in morbidity and mortality for over one billion people in the developing world. Classical western water treatment tedmologies are unsuitable, and often unsustainable, interventions due to the lack of infrastructure and the prohibitive cost of installing, operating and maintaining such systems. A locally produced simple filtration system, developed from low-tedmology ceramics and operated at the point-of-use, represents one of the most promising approaches for an effective and sustainable solution. Filters fabricated using simple clays, tempered with common waste materials and produced using techniques that are ubiquitous to local artisans were found to be capable of removing bacteria with extremely high efficiency (average removal rates >99.98%). Considerations for materials (clay and temper), manufacturing (moulding, drying and firing) and operation (duration, regeneration and flow conditions) were made to ensure that the optimum balance of simplicity and performance was achieved. Simple system adaptations were made to the basic filtration units by incorporating low-technology adsorbents capable of removing other contaminants of concern, such as arsenic and heavy metals. The end product is a cheap and simple ceramic material, suitable for use in household filtration systems, which allows the effective removal of bacteria, associated pathogens, toxic pollutants and metals from contaminated water, and notably, can be produced and operated without the need for imported skills or materials.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Texas at Dallas, 2008. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 298-330)

Texte remanié de: Doctoral diss.--Catholic university of America, 1989. / Index.

Texte remanié de Ph. D. thesis--Liverpool. / Bibliogr. p. 171-177. Index.

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Since the beginning of the economic and financial crisis of 2007/8 national-level contextual factors matter in different ways for individuals in EU member states when assessing support for the EU. Individuals hypothesise that EU member states economic affluence and quality of governance creates the salience of issues. This influences the criteria adopted by them when determining attitudinal factors towards the EU. When applied to individuals in less affluent EU member states individuals evaluate the EU on the basis of economic prospects, while in more affluent EU member states individuals rely on political criteria to evaluate the EU. In the least affluent EU member states individuals generalise their perceptions of national and personal economic conditions to the EU level believing that the EU does not represent their economic interests. In the most affluent EU member states individuals are equally critical of the EU but centre their judgements on the comparative quality of national governments and EU institutions. For individuals the assumption remains that further EU expansion implies continued market liberalisation. However since the beginning of the economic and financial crisis what individuals regard as excessive inequality may have little to do with inequality per se but whether the liberal-market economy as a whole provides high living standards and dynamic economic development. Inequality as a macro-political and economic determinant bridges the gap between economic and political systems at the national and EU level. Using data from European Election Study (EES) 2009 and Standard Eurobarometer data from 2009-2013 this inquiry examines individual-level effects on perceptions of inequality and how this plays a significant role when analysing mass public opinion support for the EU. By using a Binary Logit Regression model, Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) Multiple Regression analysis and Hierarchical Linear Modelling (HLM) the analysis demonstrates two predominant findings. Firstly, individuals believe that the EU has a positive role to play in addressing inequality since the onset of the economic crisis. Secondly, the role to be played by the EU in addressing inequality supersedes that of the EU member states’ governments and reinforces support for the European integration project. Overall, this demonstrates that individuals in the EU believe that the EU is best placed to address market-generated inequality since the onset of the economic and financial crisis of 2007/8 and as a result this produces increased support for the EU. These findings demonstrate a strong case for the inclusion of inequality as a determinant of mass public opinion support for the EU since the economic and financial crisis began in 2007/8.

This thesis examines the concept of 'open justice' as it applies to the English criminal process. The conventional understanding of open justice requires merely that trial proceedings are open to the public and that those who attend are free to report to others what they have witnessed. This thesis seeks to demonstrate that the notion of open justice need not be so confined. The oversight of the criminal process provided by the courts, independent administrative bodies and the public, and the open manner in which such oversight is conducted, may be viewed as a more expansive conception of open justice. Such openness is argued to be required by the values of accountability, effective performance, rights protection, democracy and public confidence. It will be demonstrated that the openness flowing from the oversight of the English criminal process provided by the courts, independent administrative bodies and the public, has developed considerably in recent years. There may though be scope for the development of further openness. Where appropriate, proposals designed to achieve such enhanced openness will be advanced.

The context of this thesis is the growth in size and significance of the St Andrews University Library, made possible by the University's entitlement, under the Copyright Acts between 1709 and 1836, to free copies of new publications. Chapter I shows how the University used its improving Library to present to clients and visitors an image of the University's social and intellectual ideology. Both medium and message in this case told of a migration into the printed book of the University's functions, intellectual, spiritual, and moral, a migration which was going forward likewise in the other Scottish universities and in Scottish culture at large. Chapters II and III chart that migration respectively in religious discourse and in moral education. This growing importance of the book prompted some Scottish professors to devise agencies other than consumer demand to control what was read in their universities and beyond, and indeed what was printed. Chapter IV reviews those devices, one of which was the subject Rhetoric, now being reformed to bring modern literature into its discipline. Chapter V argues that the new Rhetoric tended in fact to confirm the hegemony of print by turning literary study from a general literary apprenticeship into the specialist reading of canonical printed texts. That tendency was not without opposition. Chapter VI analyses the challenge from traditional oral culture as it was expressed in the marginalia added to the Library books at St Andrews University by its students, and argues that this dissident culture helped to form the voice of the poet Robert Fergusson while he was one of those students. Chapter VII goes on to show how Fergusson used that voice to warn his countrymen of the threat which print represented to their culture, and to show how it might be resisted in the interests of both literature and conviviality.

Human Systems Integration Report / Each of the domains of HSI is of itself a discipline with vast amounts of research, analytic techniques, educational programs, and methods for evaluating the effectiveness of the system with respect to the specific domain. Relatively recently, domains with a logical similarity have been the focus of interest for researchers studying the plausibility of creating evaluative tools which take into account the constraints of multiple domains. This interest has led to the creation of various tools with which acquisition professionals can more accurately determine the impact of design decisions on the system as a whole. However, no single tool has yet been created which takes into consideration the constraints of all the domains which HSI encompasses. The development of such a tool would give decision-makers the ability to quickly and accurately determine the system-wide trade-offs associated with changes in a single domain. In order for this to occur, an in-depth study of the current tools associated with each of the HSI domains must be conducted. The most accurate tools from each domain must be integrated with a single interface. However, this step will only be realized after a common language has been identified which can speak to the effectiveness of the system in each of the domains. Finally, the interface must be intuitive, and designed with the end-user in mind. This study identified the various resources currently available for evaluating each of the HSI domains. These resources were compiled in a searchable database for use by the HSI professional in the planning of HSI evaluations. Following a description of how HSI relates to the Department of Defense acquisition process, the design effort to produce an overarching interface was presented. This interface would allow the acquisition professional to evaluate the trade-offs between all relevant domains and make well-informed decisions with respect to the overall effectiveness of the human in the system. Next, a plan for insertion of the process and software into the acquisition community, making the tool available to all acquisition professionals, was discussed. Finally, as with all research, the limitations of the present study were discussed, as well as recommendations for future research.

Texte remanié de: Doct. diss.--Boston (Mass.). / Bibliogr. p. 119-122.