The purpose of this research activity is to determine how cultural astronomy manages natural disasters in the local communities. Study Area: Mahikeng in North West Province among the Barolong boora Tshidi. Indigenous people have contributed the least to world greenhouse gas emission and have the smallest ecological footprints on Earth. Yet they suffer the worst impacts not only of climate change, but also from some of the international mitigation measures being taken. Impacts on climate change affect people negatively, these may include droughts, floods, increased diseases in people, plants as well as animals, biodiversity extinct, high mortality rate, increased food insecurity to mention a few. This study aims to describe how knowledge of cultural astronomy manages natural disasters within our local communities. In this dissertation the history of Barolong using their knowledge of cultural astronomy to manage natural disasters is gradually fading away because of non-recognition of our knowledge custodians as they do not hold any formal education and those who have it only ended at primary level. Democracy brought a sense of mental decolonization unto us as South Africans. This brought light to some of our village members to acknowledge their identity which includes their customs and beliefs. This study unearthed that local communities have the rich indigenous knowledge to sustain their lives that is how some villages are able to prepare and manage natural disasters without the knowledge of cultural astronomy only. They practice other measures which also sustain them and are also easy to be passed on orally from generation to generation. In Barolong communities the knowledge of sky readers is regarded to be very important, it is information that can be relied on because sky readers are always correct. In addition, African traditional religious nature and structure endorses the practice to be acknowledged and be taken as African identity. In the light of the above, and after taking comments by the members of the communities, recommendations are made for an integrated study framework between the local knowledge and modern technologies or information of astronomy. It is also recommended that there should be proper documentation which is not distorted before it can be totally extinct. / Thesis (M.(Indigenous Knowledge Systems) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2014

Climate change is currently one of the most pressing environmental concerns globally and in South Africa. South Africa is especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change because of the country’s socio-economic context, water scarcity, unique geography and climate sensitive biodiversity. South Africa’s road transport and energy sectors are among others major contributors to climate change. The traditional command and control measures designed to mitigate climate change in South Africa’s road transport and energy sectors do not suffice on their own, there is a need for tax-based fiscal measures to assist in mitigating climate change in these sectors. Tax-based fiscal measures offer certain unique climate change mitigation capabilities, therefore numerous tax-based fiscal measures are already in place in South Africa’s road transport and energy sectors. The development of new taxbased fiscal measures should be encouraged and existing tax-based fiscal measures can and should be refined and extended to enhance their climate change mitigation efficacy. / LLM (Environmental Law and Governance), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011

Disasters have increased in frequency and their impact has been intensely felt on the continent. This frequently results in damage to the resources and infrastructure on which humans rely on for survival and quality of life. When disasters strike, large segments of the population are faced with devastating consequences, which include food shortages, limited shelter and inadequate health services. Disasters are a result of a complex mix of natural and other hazards, including human actions and vulnerabilities. They consist of a combination of factors that determine the potential for people to be exposed to particular types of hazards. The frequency and impact of disasters in South Africa has increased significantly, the most common type of disaster being drought. Droughts are the result of reduced amounts of rain received over a long period of time, but it includes delays at the beginning of the precipitation season that affects crops that depend on the rain. For the purpose of this study, agricultural and socioeconomic drought received attention. Agricultural drought is when the humidity in the soil is not sufficient to assist crop production and growth in the area. Socio-economic drought arises when economic activities aligned with other elements do not meet the population demand. Agricultural droughts often have the latent effect of reducing agricultural production to such an extent that the livelihoods of the communal farmers are threatened. Drought effects often result in shrivelling crops, loss of water resources, vegetation and a decrease in livestock forage for communal farmers. This, in turn, leads to a decreased availability of food and the overall loss of livelihoods. In addition, activities such as crop growing and grazing conditions for livestock remain vulnerable, yet rural communities rely on these to generate income. The most severe impact of droughts do not simply include the absence of food supply for the community, but rather correlates directly with the severity and the duration of droughts. This often increases the community’s vulnerability. The empirical findings were concluded from focus groups interviews and semistructured interviews as data collection for the study. The data collected from the field was compared to the Sustainable Livelihood Framework. The analysis revealed that drought mitigation in South Africa only exists in governmental policy documents. Moreover, the lack of a disaster management plan for Setlagole makes it difficult to prepare for drought. An inadequate relationship between farmers and the government also makes it difficult to create a sense of shared vision and mission for drought alleviation. One prominent issue that makes the effects of drought so severe is the process of relief; it takes too long for the government to give assistance to the farmers. This shows that mitigation measures are needed to prepare both the farmers and the government for drought. / M Development and Management, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

Master of Science / Department of Chemical Engineering / Larry E. Erickson / The impact of human activities on the atmosphere and the accompanying risks of long-term global climate change are by now familiar topics to many people. Although most of the increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations is due to carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels, globally about one-third of the total human-induced warming effect due to GHGs comes from agriculture and land-use. This report provides a brief review of greenhouse effects and impacts on climate, human health and environment. The sources of emissions of greenhouse gases due to human activities, both current estimates and future projections, have been included. The report further discusses possible options for mitigation of greenhouse gases. The report also discusses the role agriculture can play towards mitigation of greenhouse gases as many agricultural processes such as anaerobic digestion, manure gasification; carbon sequestration etc. can help reduce or offset greenhouse gas emissions. Capture and sequestration of CO2 released as a result of burning fossil fuel in power plants, energy and other industries is gaining widespread interest as a potential method of controlling greenhouse gas emissions. Various technologies such as amine (MEA)-based CO2 absorption system for post-combustion flue gas applications have been developed, and can be integrated with existing plant operations. Removal of SO2 by using amine-based carbon capture system offers additional benefit. Efforts are underway to develop a broader suite of carbon capture and sequestration technologies for more comprehensive assessments in the context of multi-pollutant environmental management. Geologic formations and/ or possibly oceans can be used as sinks to store recovered CO2. In oil and gas exploration industry CO2 may be injected in producing or abandoned reservoirs which will not only help in maintaining the reservoir pressure (which improves overall field exploitation) but in some cases even leads to enhanced oil recovery.

Master of Science / Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering / William H. Hsu / Caterina M. Scoglio / Early detection of livestock diseases and development of cost optimal mitigation strategies are becoming a global necessity. Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) is considered one of the most serious livestock diseases owing to its high rate of transmission and extreme economic consequences. Thus, it is imperative to improve parameterized mathematical models for predictive and preventive purposes. In this work, a meta-population based stochastic model is implemented to assess the FMD infection dynamics and to curb economic losses in countries with underdeveloped livestock disease surveillance databases. Our model predicts the spatio-temporal evolution of FMD over a weighted contact network where the weights are characterized by the effect of wind and movement of animals and humans. FMD incidence data from countries such as Turkey, Iran and Thailand are used to calibrate and validate our model, and the predictive performance of our model is compared with that of baseline models as well. Additionally, learning-based prediction models can be utilized to detect the time of onset of an epidemic outbreak. Such models are computationally simple and they may be trained to predict infection in the absence of background data representing the dynamics of disease transmission, which is otherwise necessary for predictions using spatio-temporal models. Thus, we comparatively study the predictive performance of our spatio-temporal against neural networks and autoregressive models. Also, Bayesian networks combined with Monte-Carlo simulations are used to determine the gold standard by approximation. Next, cost-effective mitigation strategies are simulated using the theoretical concept of infection network fragmentation. Based on the theoretical reduction in the total number of infected animals, several simulative mitigation strategies are proposed and their cost-effectiveness measures specified by the percentage reduction in the total number of infected animals per million US dollars, are also analyzed. We infer that the cost-effectiveness measures of mitigation strategies implemented using our spatio-temporal predictive model have a narrower range and higher granularity than those for mitigation strategies formulated using learning-based prediction models. Finally, we coin optimal mitigation strategies using Fuzzy Dominance Genetic Algorithms (FDGA). We use the concept of hierarchical fuzzy dominance to minimize the total number of infected animals, the direct cost incurred due to the implementation of mitigation strategies, the number of animals culled, and the number of animals vaccinated to mitigate an epidemic. This method has the potential to aid in economic policy development for countries that have lost their FMD-free status.

Master of Science / Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering / Caterina M. Scoglio / In recent times, research in the field of complex networks has advanced by leaps and bounds. Researchers have developed mathematical models for different networks such as epidemic networks, computer networks, power grid networks, and so on. In this thesis, the power grid has been modeled as a complex network. The power grid is being used extensively in every field today. Our dependence on the power grid has exceeded to an extent that we cannot think of survival without electricity. Recently, there has been an increasing concern about the growing possibility of cascading failures, due to the fact that the power grid is works close to full utilization. Furthermore, the problem will be exacerbated by the need to transfer a large amount of power generated by renewable sources from the regions where it is produced to the regions where it is consumed. Many researchers have studied these networks to find a solution to the problem of network robustness. Topological analysis may be considered as one of the components of analysis of a system's robustness. In the first part of this thesis, to study the cascading effect on power grid networks from a topological standpoint, we developed a simulator and used the IEEE standard networks for our analysis. The cascading effect was simulated on three standard networks, the IEEE 300 bus system, the IEEE 118 bus test system, and the WSCC 179 bus equivalent model. To extend our analysis to a larger set of networks with different topologies, we developed a first approximation network generator the creates networks with characteristics similar to the standard networks but with different topologies. The generated networks were then compared with the standard networks to show the effect of topology on the robustness of power grid networks. A comparison of the network metrics for the standard and the generated networks indicate that the generated networks are more robust than the standard ones. However, even if the generated topologies show an increased robustness with respect to the standard topologies, the real implementation and design of power grids based on those topologies requires further study, and will be considered as future work. In the second part of this thesis, we studied two mitigation strategies based on load reduction, Homogeneous load reduction and Targeted range-based load reduction. While the generic Homogeneous strategy will only mitigate the severity of the cascade when a non-negligible load reduction is performed, our newly proposed targeted load reduction strategy is much more efficient, reducing the load only in a small portion of the grid. The determination of this special portion of the grid is based on an algorithm, which finds the paths supplying power from the generators to the nodes. This algorithm is described in details in the Appendix B. While the Homogeneous strategy is easier to implement, efficient results can be obtained using the targeted strategy.

Le lac Trois-Lacs reçoit des sédiments et de [i.e. des] nutriments en provenance de son bassin versant, il en résulte des pertes pour la population locale en termes d'économie et de qualité de vie. Les causes en sont multiples, l'agriculture qui est très présente sur le territoire et la perte de milieux humides contribuent certainement à cette problématique. L'objectif principal de cette étude est de développer une démarche analytique multi-échelles alliant la gestion des milieux humides et celle des problématiques agricoles liées à l'eau pour améliorer la qualité de l'eau dans le lac et son bassin versant. Dans un premier temps, l'analyse du bassin versant est effectuée dans le but d'en faire ressortir : (1) les sous-bassins versants prioritaires pour les interventions de mitigation, (2) les complexes de milieux humides à prioriser pour la conservation et (3) des sites potentiels de restauration de milieux humides. L'étape suivante, à une échelle plus fine, consiste à réaliser un diagnostic détaillé de chacun des sous-bassins versants prioritaires. Ce diagnostic inclut le calcul de l'indice de qualité de la bande riveraine, l'identification de parcelles à risque d'érosion et de points d'érosion potentielle ainsi que la sélection de sites pour la restauration de milieux humides. L'analyse du bassin versant a permis de faire ressortir 12 sous-bassins versant [i.e. versants] prioritaires parmis [i.e. parmi] les 32 présents dans le bassin versant et d'identifier 20 complexes de milieux humides pour la conservation. Les diagnostics détaillés des 12 sous-bassins prioritaires fournissent de l'information pertinente à l'implantation de meilleures pratiques de gestion ainsi qu'à la restauration de bandes riveraines et de milieux humides. Ils ont permis de localiser 239 parcelles à risque élevé d'érosion et 87 parcelles à risque moyen ainsi que 132 points d'érosion potentielle. Au total, 71,4 km de bandes riveraines ont été caractérisées comme ayant un indice de qualité très faible et 65,4 km faible. La méthodologie permet de mettre à profit les forces de chacune des échelles et de compenser pour leurs faiblesses respectives. L'étude a mis l'accent sur l'agriculture, mais d'autres sources de pollution diffuse ou ponctuelle sont présentes dans le bassin versant et devraient également être l'objet d'analyses détaillées dans le futur.

ITC/USA 2006 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Second Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 23-26, 2006 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California / In this paper we describe a new method that is applicable to mitigating both multipath interference and adjacent channel interference (ACI) in aeronautical telemetry applications using ARTM Tier-1 waveforms. The proposed method uses a linear equalizer that is derived using Kalman filtering theory, which has been used for channel equalization for high-speed communication systems. We illustrate the proposed method with numerical examples obtained from simulations that show the bit error rate performance (BER) for different modulation schemes.

ITC/USA 2006 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Second Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 23-26, 2006 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California / A Synthetic Beamforming antenna was built for Airborne Telemetry. Low-Noise Block-converters translated RF to IF suitable for direct analog-to-digital conversion. Then all telemetry functions were performed digitally via parallel FPGAs for 10 independent sources. Monopulse tracking and optimal diversity combination was performed using 4 antenna quadrants at two orthogonal polarizations. Novel estimation approaches drove digital demodulation, symbol- and bit- synchronization. Final telemetry outputs include: digital, analog (video), and analog IF (e.g., for downlink relay). This program has incubated several concepts that we believe have the combined potential to significantly improve the future of telemetry.

Rock dust has been historically applied to mitigate the coal dust explosion in either dry or wet form. Dry rock dust performs best in inerting the potential coal dust explosion due to the greatest dispersive properties. However, it undesirably exposes underground coal miners to respirable dust particles which imposes a severe health danger. Wet dust application is able to significantly reduce the floatable dust particles but another problem associated with caking is predominant. Caking phenomenon is usually used to describe the change of free-flowing bulk solids into agglomerated chunks. Unfortunately, the environmental conditions of an underground mine have the potential to cause caking of the rock dust, especially for wet dust application, which reduces the dispersive characteristics needed for effective explosion mitigation and is also the focus of the present study. Surface modification of rock dust to generate a hydrophobic surface is believed to alleviate the caking problem by allowing instant water drainage and eliminating the formation of water and solid bridges. Surface modification of rock dust was evaluated in the present study with a series of potential modifying reagents including oleic acid, sodium oleate and stearic acid. The modification efficiency in terms of measured contact angle, zeta potential and dispersibility values was investigated with sodium oleate generating the best modification effect. Dispersants were investigated as well in the present work aiming to further increase the particles dispersibility in addition to the excellent hydrophobization effect generated by sodium oleate. However, dispersibility test results indicated that the adsorption of dispersant and sodium oleate was competitive. The preferential adsorption of dispersants over oleate deteriorated the surface hydrophobicity of particles and the dispersibility was decreased as a result. As anticipated, dry rock dust always provided the best dispersibility with almost 95% of the dust remaining in suspension at a dispersion time of 30 seconds. The percentage dust dispersion values of sodium oleate treated rock dust was increased to as high as 71% in contrast to 47% of untreated wet rock dust and the explosion potential was correspondingly reduced by almost 83%. The effect of sodium oleate was further studied as a function of reagent concentration to determine the optimum application condition. The dispersibility of rock dust particles was initially increased until the application of 0.1 wt% sodium oleate, after which it slightly decreased up to 0.5 wt% oleate. When the concentration was above 0.5 wt%, the dispersibility of dust particles substantially decreased to a value lower than the value obtained for regular wet dust. The optimum sodium oleate concentration was thus determined at approximately 0.1 by weight of rock dust particles with a corresponding contact angle of around 110 degrees. The pivotal of rock dust modification efficiency is its long-term stability which can be corroborated by irreversible chemical adsorption rather than the short-term physical adsorption. Therefore, the fundamental adsorption mechanism of sodium oleate on rock dust surface was continuously investigated by means of using surface tension measurements, FTIR, Thermogravimetric, SEM analyses and constructing the species distribution diagram. Based on the surface tension measurements and calculated apparent surface area occupied by per oleate molecule, the monolayer adsorption of oleate on dust surface was proposed with oleate concentration falling between 0.1-0.15 wt% which guarantees the long-term surface modification efficiency. Calcium oleate started precipitating out of bulk solution and depositing on the dust surface when the oleate concentration was above 0.15 wt% which became more predominant under high oleate concentration. Super hydrophobic particles together with nucleated calcium oleate nanoparticles tend to increase particles aggregation significantly through attractive hydrophobic particle-particle interactive force, which renders the particles more agglomerated instead of dispersed. Systematic and economic evaluation of the wet form rock dusting process in underground coal mine applications was conducted at the end to determine the safety effects, potential benefits and improvement for future implementation. Suggestions for future work were given as well to shed light on the dusting process together with rock dust surface chemistry modification.