‘The non-dialectical mean between which extremes are suspended constitutes something like an interface, which is the condition of the possibility and impossibility of seemingly seamless systems and structures. When radically conceived, this interface extends beyond every margin of difference to ‘contaminate’ opposites that once seemed fixed.’ (Taylor 1997: 269) The site is positioned at the juxtaposition of: poor opposite rich, inviting opposite closed, dense urban fabric opposite sprawling suburban, exclusive opposite inclusive. Therefore the question arise: when dealing with an island placed amidst these contradictions, how do you include and acknowledge all? By providing for the one inevitably leads to the exclusion of the other, yet again reinforcing the legacy apartheid left South African urban environments. Therefore, the search for the INbetween informs the merging of these realms by means of a public park and recreational youth facility at the juxtaposition of these contrasting realms. The merge creates a dynamic tension between public / private, rich / poor, active / contemplative, movement / rest and inside / outside which informs the design philosophy. The architecture investigates the fading of boundaries. The design problem is a youth facility with recreational, educational and counselling functions, for youth living within the inner city area of Hillbrow, Houghton, Berea and Parktown. It is part of the City of Johannesburg’s Child Friendly City Initiative (CFCI) and will be managed by Non Governmental Organisations (NGO) operating in the area. Therefore, the centre will be a facility of which youth can take ownership of. A platform for ‘accidental’ interaction between the people from these different communities. The centre needs to provide opportunities and facilities that would entice, intrigue and motivate in order to resist the attraction of street life and drugs, through the provision of recreational activities, entertainment, educational facilities in the form of skills and entrepreneurial training, counseling and medical assistance. / Dissertation (MArch(Prof))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Architecture / unrestricted

La nécessité d'une transmission sans fils des données à des débits élevés, à la fois fiables et avec de faible latence a donné lieu à ces dernières années à une succession de normes sans fil, allant de 3G-4G, WLAN à la cinquième génération (5G) des réseaux mobiles. Dans ce contexte, les équipementiers, ainsi que les opérateurs, doivent élaborer des méthodes d'essai standard précises et efficaces pour évaluer les performances des systèmes et des terminaux. Les méthodologies de test en direct par voie aérienne ("Over-The-Air") (OTA) visent à reproduire des environnements multi-trajets radio en laboratoire de manière répétable et contrôlable, en évitant les coûteuses mesures in-situ. L'objectif de cette thèse est de proposer une nouvelle méthodologie d'essai OTA, afin de reproduire la propagation des canaux radio, sur une large bande et d'évaluer les performances des systèmes sans fil dans des environnements réels. La thèse débute en présentant les bases de la chaîne radio et de certains modèles de chaînes présentés dans la littérature. Ensuite, un examen critique des méthodologies OTA existantes dans la littérature est fourni. Parmi les différentes méthodologies, nous avons opté pour l'approche de la chambre anéchoïde multi-sonde, qui consiste à déployer un certain nombre de sondes autour d'un équipement radio sous test et à les alimenter avec un émulateur d’évanouissements (fading). Cette méthodologie fournit une reproduction précise des caractéristiques des canaux spatiaux, qui sont nécessaires pour évaluer la performance des terminaux multi-antennes dans des environnements réels. L'avantage le plus important de cette méthodologie est la capacité d'imiter différents modèles de canaux en termes de résolution spatiale, d’évanouissements angulaire et temporel. Un outil de simulation a été développé pour étudier et déterminer les caractéristiques de l'installation OTA pour différents types de canaux d’intérêt. En particulier, le nombre et la mise en place des antennes nécessaires et la taille de l'installation ont été étudiés en fonction de la taille électrique du dispositif testé. Sur la base des études de dimensionnement, une configuration OTA expérimentale a été réalisée pour reproduire les caractéristiques des canaux dans l'espace tridimensionnel pour une plage de fréquences de 2 à 6 GHz. / The need for high data-rate, reliable and low latency transmission in wireless communication systems motivated a multitude of wireless standards, spanning from 3G-4G, WLAN to the upcoming fifth generation (5G) of mobile networks. In this context, technology providers, as well as operators, need to develop accurate and cost effective standard test methods, to evaluate devices performance. Over-The-Air (OTA) test methodologies aim to reproduce radio multipath environments in laboratory in repeatable and controllable manner, avoiding costly field test. The focus of this thesis is to propose a new OTA test methodology, in order to emulate radio channel propagation, over a wide band, and to evaluate the performance of the wireless systems in real environments. We start our study by introducing the basics of radio channel and some channel models presented in literature. Then a critical review of existing OTA methodologies in literature is provided. Among the different methodologies we opted for the multi-probe anechoic chamber approach, which consists into deploying a number of probes around a device, and feed them with fading emulator. This methodology provides an accurate reproduction of spatial channel characteristics, which are needed to assess the performance of multi-antenna terminals in real environments. The most important advantage of this methodology is the capability to emulate different channel model in term of spatial resolution, angular and temporal fading. A simulation tool was developed to investigate and determine the OTA setup under different channel condition. In particular the number and emplacement of antennas needed and the size of the setup were investigated as a function of the electrical size of the device under test. Based on the dimensioning studies, an experimental OTA setup was realized to reproduce the channel characteristics in the three dimensional space for a frequency range from 2 to 6 GHz.

The spread of infectious agents has been observed as long as their hosts have existed. The spread of infectious diseases in human populations, however, is more than an academic concern, causing millions of deaths every year, and prompting collective surveillance and intervention efforts worldwide. These surveillance data, used in conjunction with statistical methods and mathematical models, present both challenges and opportunities for advancements in scientific understanding and public health. Early mathematical modeling of infectious diseases in humans began by assuming homogeneous contact among individuals, but has since been extended to account for many sources of non-homogeneity in human contact. Detecting the degree of epidemic mixing between geographically separated populations, in particular, remains a difficult problem. The difficulty occurs because although disease case reports have been collected by many governments for decades, case reporting is imperfect, and transmission events themselves are nearly impossible to observe. The degree to which epidemic coupling can be detected from case reports is the central theme of this thesis. We present a careful, biologically motivated and consistent derivation of the transmission coupling (fully derived in Chapter 4). In Chapter 2 we consider the simple scenario of an epidemic spreading from one population to another, and present both numerical and analytic methodology for estimating epidemic coupling. Chapter 3 considers the problem of estimating epidemic coupling among populations undergoing recurrent epidemics, such as those of childhood diseases which have been widely observed. In Chapter 4 we present a method for estimating coupling among an arbitrary number of populations undergoing an epidemic, and apply it to estimate coupling among the parishes of London, England, during the Great Plague of 1665. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

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Magister Legum - LLM (Mercantile and Labour Law)