Cape Peninsula University of Technology
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Cloning and Expression of Antimicrobial Peptides from Vigna subterranea (Bambara Groundnut)
No full textThesis (Master of Applied Sciences in Chemistry)--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2018.Antimicrobial Peptides (AMPs) are short peptides of about 45 - 54 amino acids that exhibit antibacterial and antifungal activities. Plant defensin is a type of AMP in plants which belong to a family of cationic peptides with a characteristic 3D folding pattern held in place by four disulfide bridges. AMPs especially defensins have been identified to have a huge biotechnological potential and are being patented for many applications. The aim of this work was to clone an antimicrobial peptide from Vigna subterranea and characterise it with bioinformatics analysis. 4 sets of primers were synthesized according to the sequences of conserved regions in AMPs i.e. defensins from legumes like Vigna unguiculata, Vigna radiata, Cicer arietinum and Cajanus cajan, amongst others, which have defensins with only a few sequence differences. The primers were designated VsDef P1 to P4. Using Vigna subterranea total genomic DNA as a template, fragments of expected sizes were successfully amplified and cloned into the pDRIVE vector and used to transform Escherichia coli JM109 cells in each case. Representative clones were sequenced and analysed using BLAST from National Center for Biotechnology Information. However, only the VIG clone was shown to be a bona fide defensin (over 90% identity, E-value of 1ex102, 99% query coverage of the nucleotide sequence, compared to Vigna unguiculata defensin). Based on this high sequence identity, a new pair of primers VsDef P5 was designed based on the Vigna unguiculata defensin sequence to specifically amplify the complete Vigna subterranea defensin gene, hereafter called VsDef1. Attempts to clone VsDef1 were however unsuccessful, and evidence of clone deletion and insert re-arrangement of insert DNA was observed. Direct sequencing of the PCR product demonstrated that it was indeed the complete VsDef1 pre-protein, composed of 433 nucleotides. In silico translation and analysis showed that VsDef1 has an intron at position 105 − 259 of the nucleotide sequences and encodes for a 78 amino acid peptide. Phylogenetic analysis revealed to be similar to the sequence of the defensins for Vigna unguiculata (96%), Vigna radiata (95%), Vigna angularis (95%) and Phaseolus vulgaris (93%) on the NCBI database. The three - dimensional structure of the peptide was modelled with SWISS-MODEL expasy and the structure was found to include one α- and three β domains, similar to those of other defensins. The failure to identify VsDef1 clone in a V. subterranea library and the failure to recover its cDNA clone are consistent with the hypothesised toxicity of VsDef1 to Escherichia coli. It is suggested that a different host, such as yeast, should be used in the future. The VsDef1 mRNA levels in germinating V. subterranea seeds was however successfully investigated using real-time reverse transcription quantitative PCR. VsDef1 mRNA is present in both the testa and embryo of dry seed and will persist through the early stages of seedling growth. This demonstrates the importance of VsDef1 in fighting off infection during germination in order to ensure successful germination. It is therefore essential to characterise more antimicrobial peptides from V. subterranea. The diversity of AMPs and their patterns of expressed genes will enable understanding of complex regulatory networks, which will likely enable identifying of genes involved in diseases and new biological processes
Adoption of technology by public service employees : case of parolee electronic monitoring system in South Africa
No full textThesis (MTech (Information Technology))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2018.The DCS invested in the ICT solution to drive their Enterprise Architectural strategic and objective goals. Government departments uses ICT on their day to day business activities and to pursue for competitive progression compare to other parts of the world. The challenges are entirely depending on the user adoption of new technology. Other challenges that might delay the progress in government department would be the financial constraints and the socio inequality among our community in the developing countries. Government has a growth in e-government ICT’s infrastructure used in everyday activities and online functionality. These emerge from private entities that the government does business with, to force them to move away from manual function to electronic function and processes. Electronic monitoring system has been there in some parts of the world. Hence the South African government has opt to make use of this tool as it has been have a success results in some parts of the world. Even though there are some challenge the department has decided to implement EM system for monitoring of parolees. This study explores the factors that influence the adoption of electronic monitoring systems of parolees in the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) in South Africa, which will assist the DCS to monitor parolees effectively under budgetary constraints. Also to overcome the challenges of overcrowding, saving more cost of building more new facilities
Environmental impacts of informal economic activities in a low cost housing development, case study of Dunoon, Cape Town
No full textThesis (Master of Environmental Management)--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2018.Over the past decades, environmental problems associated with low-cost housing developments have been reported on a national and global scale (see Sowman and Urquhart, 1998 and also Norville, 2003). Poor community participation in the early stages of project design and lack of public involvement in decision making regarding low cost housing development are said to have contributed to these environmental issues. The environmental issues that have been reported so far relate to escalating water quality due to poor storm water management and improper waste disposal which poses a threat to the natural environment. While there is as emerging view that the nature of environmental problems experienced in these settlements are due to a lack of participation by local people in decision making, there is virtual no studies that have located this analysis within the theoretical debate of modernist planning. The issue that has been ignored thus far is the fact that low cost housing development (in generally) still resembles the spatial pattern of both the modernist and apartheid planning orthodox. It is thus from this context that the local people are increasingly excluded from participating in decision making. This form of modernist development is contrary to the ethos of sustainable development. In essence, sustainable development, as a new development theory, also adheres to the notion of local citizenry involvement in development for the benefits of the future generation. The research study further argues that poor people need to participate in decision making regarding the design and delivery of these houses (Oelefse, 1997). Therefore, the study investigated the underlying environmental implications associated with informal economic activities in a low cost housing establishment. The research study adopted a qualitative research design and an inductive approach. Dunoon was used as a case study for the research. The study used two sampling techniques, purposive sampling and random sampling,were used. Interviews, questionnaires and observations were used to collect data from the residents, informal businesses in Dunoon and key stakeholders from the Department of Environmnental Affairs as well as City of Cape Town. The findings of the thesis illustrate that long-term environmental impacts that are visible in the low-cost housing development of Dunoon are triggered by informal economic activities that are practised by the local people to make a living. In this regard, this thesis argues that local people need to be involved in the early planning and design stages of low-cost housing development. They need to be involved in all development stages to ensure that they drive the vision of the development. Lack of involvement of the local people in the initial stages of decision-making on the project triggered severe long term environmental impacts. The study then concludes that long-term environmental impacts in Dunoon are intertwined with the escalation of informal economic activities initiated by the local people in order to cope with harsh economic realities. These informal activities are a form of reaction to the imposed version of development. Thus, the environmental problems that emerged out of this pattern of human activities must be analysed by means of conceptualising the Dunoon low-cost housing as a product of modernist planning philosophy. Based on the information gathered and discussed in this thesis, it is concluded that the low-cost housing development is a product of modernist planning
Leadership qualities of women in project management in a selected local government department in the Western Cape, South Africa
No full textThesis (MTech (Business Administration in Project Management))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2018.Much debate has been going on about the ability of women to lead in the large organisations around the country. The call for women to be given senior leadership positions appears to have run global as more and more women seek to get into powerful positions. Whilst the population of women is generally higher than that of men, women still remain in small numbers relative to men getting the positions. Research findings do not seem to have agreed on generalisations as to why women remain in few numbers even where they are in the majority. The hotel industry, the nursing field, etc. even in such establishments the number of women in leadership has remained low. Many theories have been advanced, including the allegation that men prefer male leaders to female leaders, women cannot stand pressure in the boardroom, and men stand on the progress of women in organisations. The researcher decided on getting information from subordinates in the organisation on their perception of good leadership as perceived by them. The questions were derived from existing theory on women leaders’ characteristics and standard behaviour for effective leadership. The respondents measured from the Likert scale their perception about certain characteristics deemed to be the strengths of women. This was done to avoid using gender as this would influence some responses to the questions. The findings indicate that not all ‘feminine’ positive attributes are necessarily accepted as leading competencies with some of the male characteristics considered ‘abhor able.’ Convenience sampling, which is a non-probabilistic sampling method, was used in this research study. The benefits of this method are that the individuals are readily available and are easy to recruit. It was easier to distribute the questionnaires to the sample by means of e-mails and clarify issues as they arose
Factors affecting environmental sustainability of the downstream oil industry in Western Cape, South Africa
No full textThesis (MTech (Business Administration))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2018.The oil industry has been a major contributor to economic development in many countries; providing jobs, revenue, infrastructure and businesses to third parties. However, this development has also come with adversity on the physical environment. The oil industry accounts for the highest Green House Gas (GHG) emissions in the world, making it the number one polluter. In addition, South Africa has been regarded as the biggest polluter in Africa, with fossil-based fuel cited as the major cause of environmental degradation. South Africa’s physical environment is also cited as having degraded more than most countries in Africa. This proposition requires players in the oil industry to urgently address this situation. As the future of economic development is likely to be spearheaded by the oil industry, concerns have been raised at the slow rate of addressing oil companies’ operations which causes the environment to be less sustainable. This study uses a qualitative content analysis to explore the oil companies’ actions towards addressing environmental adversity caused by their unsustainable operations. In order to be environmental sustainable, oil companies must; incorporate environmental sustainability into missions and visions, financial investment into sustainable initiatives, involve top management in environmental programs, engage stakeholder, comply and align organisational processes and operations with environmental legislations and introducing renewable energy
Energy wheeling viability of distributed renewable energy for industry
No full textThesis (Master of Engineering in Electrical Engineering))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2018.Industry, which forms the lifeblood of South Africa’s economy, is under threat as a result of increased electricity pricing and unstable supply. Wheeling of energy, which is a method to transport electricity generated from an Independent Power Producer (IPP) to an industrial consumer via the utility’s network, could potentially address this problem. Unlike South Africa’s electricity landscape, which is highly regulated and monopolized by Eskom, most developed countries have deregulated their electricity market, which has led to greater competition for electricity supply. This thesis, presents an evaluation of the economic viability and technical concerns arising from third party transportation of energy between an IPP and an industrial consumer. IPP’s are able to generate electricity from various renewable distributed generation (DG) sources, which are often physically removed from the load. In practice, electricity could be generated by an IPP and connected to a nearby Main Transmission Substation (MTS) in a region with high solar, wind or hydropower resources and sold to off-takers a few hundred kilometres away. Using two software simulation packages, technical and economic analysis have been conducted based on load data from two industrial sites, to determine the viability of wheeling energy between an IPP and off-taker. The viability will be evaluated based on levelized cost of electricity (LCOE); net present cost (NPC); DG technology; distance from the load; available renewable resources; impact on voltage profile, fault contribution, thermal loading of the equipment and power loss. The results from both case studies show that the impact of DG on the voltage profile is negligible. The greatest impact on voltage profile was found to be at the site closest to the load. Asynchronous and synchronous generators have a greater fault contribution than inverter-based DG. The fault contribution is proportional to the distance from the load. Overall, thermal loading of lines increased marginally, but decreased based on distances from the load. Power loss on short lines is negligible but there is a significant loss on the line between the load and DG based on the distance from the load. Electricity generated from wind power is the most viable based on LCOE and NPC. For larger wind systems, as illustrated by the second case study, grid parity has already been reached. Wheeling of wind energy has already proven to be an economically viable option. According to future cost projection, large scale solar energy will become viable by 2019. The concept of wheeling energy between an IPP and off-taker has technical and economic merit. Wheeling charges are perceived to be high, but this is not the case as wheeling tariffs consist of standard network charges.
In the future, renewable energy will continue to mature based on technology and cost. Solar energy, including lithium-ion battery back-up technology, looks promising based on future cost projections. Deregulation of the electricity market holds the key to the successful implementation of energy wheeling as it will open the market up for greater competition
Advanced technological solutions to the negative perceptions of nuclear power plants
No full textThesis (Master of Engineering in Electrical Engineering)--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2018.Worldwide a movement is underway to replace the burning of limited fossil fuel reserves for power generation with a cleaner, more efficient, yet still reliable and cost-effective method. Even though renewable technologies are often among the most common proposed, they are still limited by factors such as cost when considering large scale generation. Further requirements for replacing fossil fuel generation methods include the need to provide a continuous and reliable output for base load requirements, which is difficult to guarantee when making use of renewables alone. The proposed alternative is nuclear energy, as it is a reliable and cleaner method of power generation as compared to fossil fuels, capable of providing cost effective energy in the long run. The downside to nuclear energy, however, is the negative perception and general dislike of this method of generation, especially among the public who have been around this technology since its early days of implementation. The aim of this study is, therefore, to inform and prove that nuclear technology has evolved and come a long way since its early days, by making use of advanced technological solutions to address the fears associated with this technology from many years ago. The study further aims to prove that technologies such as
advanced safety systems, new generations of reactors, advanced containment structures for both reactors and waste containment, as well as new waste disposal methods, have evolved nuclear energy into a safer and cleaner alternative method of power generation. This is achieved by first considering the origin of the negative perceptions surrounding the technology, and the nuclear accidents of the past, which have greatly influenced opinions about nuclear technology even up until today. After identifying the concerns and fears surrounding nuclear energy, research was conducted concerning how the latest technologies and innovations in safety systems are used to address these concerns, and ultimately eliminate the threats where possible. With the biggest concern identified, namely a core meltdown event
leading to the release of radioactive material into the environment, two simulations were conducted to illustrate the unlikelihood of such an event occurring. The purpose of these simulations was, moreover, to illustrate the complexity and reliability of the various safety systems incorporated into the design of a nuclear power plant, preventing such a feared release of radioactivity from occurring. The research also importantly revealed that the dangers and possible threats posed by nuclear technology are often grossly overestimated, as under normal operating conditions a coal power plant, in fact, releases more radiation into the environment than a nuclear power plant. Further research reveals that the feared nuclear waste, produced by the nuclear industry yet regulated and disposed of properly, is only a small fraction of the highly hazardous waste produced on an annual basis worldwide. It is also revealed that in terms of
fatalities, fossil fuel generation, on average, is responsible for more deaths annually than the biggest nuclear disasters that have ever occurred. Addressing the fears and concerns surrounding nuclear technology is therefore important, as this valuable resource may otherwise remain under-appreciated and under-utilised because of the misperceptions which currently exist amongst the public. This furthermore results in the unnecessary exhaustion of fossil fuel reserves, and concomitant pollution of the environment – all due to antiquated fears surrounding nuclear power plants
The adoption and use of information and communication technologies in private high schools in the Western Cape
No full textThesis (MEd)--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2018.This study investigates some of the factors affecting the adoption and use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for curriculum delivery in selected private high schools in the Western Cape. In this 21st century, ICT has penetrated the society to the point that it is most likely to assume that the private high school in general, are effectively incorporating them (ICTs) in delivery of the curriculum. Regrettably, this assumption is not always true as revealed in most of the cases examined in this study. Instead, a lot of private high school teachers who were selected as participants or respondents in this study revealed that they are still facing critical challenges when they want to effectively adopt and use ICTs for curriculum delivery. While the previous studies have focused more on the ICT integration in pubic schools in disadvantaged communities, this study employed a mixed methods research design (that is both quantitative and qualitative research methods) to explore the factors affecting the adoption and use of ICTs in private high schools in the Western Cape Province. The two frameworks adopted in this study, the Teacher Development framework (DoE, 2007) and the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework guided the researcher in the analysis of the research findings. The study also used both deductive and inductive reasoning in the interpretation of the results. The results of the study show that despite the high level of appreciating the importance of ICT adoption and use in teaching and learning by private high school teachers in the Western Cape Province, there are still critical factors that continue to militate against the effective integration of technology in the classroom. The study revealed the following factors as critical regarding the effective adoption and use of ICTs in curriculum delivery: lack of skills, limited access to ICT resources, lack of technical support, shortage of class time, and lack of teacher motivation
Scale-up dynamics for the photocatalytic treatment of textile effluent
No full textThesis (Masters of Engineering in Chemical Engineering)--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, [2018].Enhancing the efficiency of large scale photocatalytic systems has been a concern for decades. Engineering design and modelling for the successful application of laboratory-scale techniques to large scale is obligatory. Among the many fields of research in heterogeneous photocatalysis, photocatalytic reaction engineering can initiate improvement and application of conservative equations for the design and scale-up of photocatalytic reactors. Various reactor configurations were considered, and the geometry of choice was the annular shape. Theory supports the view that annular geometry, in the presence of constant transport flow properties, monochromatic light, and an incompressible flow, will allow a system to respect the law of conservation of mass. The degradation of a simulated dye, methyl orange (MO), by titanium dioxide (TiO2) with a simulated solar light (halogen lamp) in a continuous recirculating batch photoreactor (CRBPR) was studied. A response surface methodology (RSM) based on central composite design (CCD) was applied to study interaction terms and individual terms and the role they play in the photocatalytic degradation of MO. The studied terms were volume (L), TiO2 (g), 2 (mL), and initial dye concentration (mg/L), to optimize these parameters and to obtain their mutual interaction during a photocatalytic process, a 24 full-factorial CCD and RSM with an alpha set to 1.5 were employed. The polynomial models obtained for the chosen responses (% degradation and reaction rate constant, k) were shown to have a good externally studentized vs normal percentage probability fit with R2 values of 0.69 and 0.77 respectively. The two responses had a common significant interaction term which was the H2O2 initial dye concentration term. The optimum degradation that was obtained in this study was a volume of 20 L, TiO2 of 10 g, H2O2 of 200 mL and the initial dye concentration of 5 mg/L which yielded 64.6% and a reaction rate constant of 0.0020 min-1. The model of percentage degradation was validated on a yield of 50% and 80% over a series of set volumes and the model validation was successful
Channel coding on a nano-satellite platform
No full textThesis (Master of Engineering in Electrical Engineering)--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2017.The concept of forward error correction (FEC) coding introduced the capability of achieving near Shannon limit digital transmission with bit error rates (BER) approaching 10-9 for signal to noise power (Eb/No) values as low as 0.7. This brought about the ability to transmit large amounts of data at fast rates on bad/noisy communication channels. In nano-satellites, however, the constraints on power that limit the energy that can be allocated for data transmission result in significantly reduced communication system performance. One of the effects of these constraints is the limitation on the type of channel coding technique that can be implemented in these communication systems. Another limiting factor on nano-satellite communication systems is the limited space available due to the compact nature of these
satellites, where numerous complex systems are tightly packed into a space as small as 10x10x10cm. With the miniaturisation of Integrated-Circuit (IC) technology and the affordability of Field-Programmable-Gate-Arrays (FPGAs) with reduced power consumption, complex circuits can now be implemented within small form factors and at low cost. This thesis describes the design, implementation and cost evaluation of a ½-rate convolutional encoder and the corresponding Viterbi decoder on an FPGA for nano-satellites applications. The code for the FPGA implementation is described in VHDL and implemented on devices
from the Artix7 (Xilinx), Cyclone V (Intel-fpga), and Igloo2 (Microsemi) families. The implemented channel code has a coding gain of ~3dB at a BER of 10-3. It can be noted that the implementation of the encoder is quite straightforward and that the main challenge is in the implementation of the decoder