The interpretation of ERTS-1 imagery for soil survey of the Merida region, Spain

The author has identified the following significant results. Major landforms and some subdivisions could be easily recognized. Water bodies, river courses, extensive areas of miocene clays, and more recent coarse textured deposits could be delineated and existing soil maps at scales up to 1:100,000 could be updated

BP’s use of posture to respond to the deepwater horizon crisis

This paper focuses on the posture the oil company BP adopted when faced with a legitimacy crisis during one of the worst environmental disasters in history. Against a backdrop of a discussion of the rhetorical aspects of image repair discourse and organisational legitimacy, Hearit’s strategy of corporate apologia was employed to determine the posture BP adopted in relation to the crisis. This paper adds to the literature on image repair strategies by heeding a call by Hearit for the context within which corporate apologia takes place to be taken account of, an approach that warrants a distinct line of research. The literature was further extended by complementing Hearit's strategy with semiotics and analysing its use in both the annual and sustainability reports. The additional focus on the sustainability reports is important, due to the high premium placed on sustainability in the changing business environment. On a practical level this paper contributes to an understanding of how organisations use sustainability reports to respond to legitimacy challenges

Klimaatatlas: ontwikkeling wateroverlastkaarten

De berekende wateroverlast door klimaatverandering hangt af van de gebruikte herhalingstijd, het gebruikte KNMI-scenario en het zichtjaar. Uiteraard is de te verwachte wateroverlast voor 2100 hoger dan voor 2050. Het W-scenario geeft een grotere wateroverlast dan het W+-scenario. Overschrijdingskansen moeten volgens het Nationaal Bestuursakkoord Water landgebruikspecifiek worden toegepast. Resultaten voor deze studie kunnen daarvoor gebruikt worden. Een harde uitspraak over de hectares, waar wateroverlast zal optreden, kan alleen gegeven worden als hierbij vermeld wordt welke drempelwaarde in millimeter gebruikt wordt. Uitgaande van het W-scenario en T = 25, is een wateroverlast van meer dan 25 millimeter in 2050 op ongeveer 25.000 hectare te verwachten. Indien het criterium echter op tien millimeter wordt gesteld, zou een gebied van ongeveer 320.000 hectare met wateroverlast worden geconfronteer

Costs and benefits of adapting to climate change at six meters below sea level

Climate change increases the vulnerability of low-lying coastal areas. Careful spatial planning can reduce this vulnerability. An assessment framework aimed at reducing vulnerability to climate change enables decision-makers to make better informed decisions about investments in adaptation to climate change through spatial planning. This paper presents and evaluates an approach to assess adaptation options, with the use of cost-benefit analysis

BATTERED WOMEN AND THE REQUIREMENT OF IMMINENCE IN SELF-DEFENCE

Should the South African courts abolish the traditional imminence standard, something must be used to stand in its place. The identification of the various alternatives which have been suggested to replace imminence - most notably the establishment of the "reasonable woman standard" as advanced in the case of S v Engelbrecht 2005 (92) SACR 41 (W) - has moved the law of self-defence into the realm of subjectivity. The end result not only undermines self-defence as a justification defence, but is also unworkable for a number of reasons. For instance, utilising expert testimony to explain how the battered woman’s syndrome affects individual perception would leave a judge with no meaningful way to determine if that abused woman’s belief in the imminence of danger was reasonable, even if viewed from her distorted perspective. It is suggested that no reference need be made to the "reasonable battered woman", since South African courts already do this to a limited extent by taking a number of factors into account in determining if the abused woman acted reasonably. By rethinking certain factors in the situation as a set of relatively innocuous normative propositions, the abused woman’s actions can be judged in accordance with standard propositions in the law of self-defence

Recruitment and retention of IT staff within a leading South African bank

The Information Technology (IT) industry is currently faced with a shrinking pool of skilled IT employees as a result of the increasing demand for these employees. This increasing demand has put organisations under pressure to start devising retention strategies in order to retain the targeted employees. This paper is based on the study that was done in the IT department of one of the leading banks in South Africa. The study was conducted in order to understand the leadership's view on employee attraction and retention, and how these can be used as tools for reducing skills shortages in the IT department of the understudied bank. Findings of this study, which followed a qualitative methodology, indicated that high employee turnover is the main contributor of the skills shortages within this department. The non-existence of a proper retention strategy is making it difficult for the leadership team to identify the type of skills that are critical to the organisation and to retain such skills

Sustainable Soesterkwartier

The municipality of Amersfoort wants to construct an endurable and sustainable eco-town in the Soesterkwartier neighbourhood, by taking future climate change into account. The impact of climate change at the location of the proposed eco-town was studied by a literature review

Now into big strides: report on statutory status for the South African Library and Information Services sector

The road to acquiring statutory status for the Library and Information Services (LIS) sector in South Africa has been traversed numerous times over the last sixty to seventy years. In more recent years, there has been renewed vigour to explore the acquisition of statutory status for the sector in South Africa. As part of this process of acquiring statutory status, a number of studies have been conducted. This paper examines the latest drive by the Library and Information Association of South Africa (LIASA) to solicit the views of a cross section of LIS personnel with regard to the sector acquiring statutory status. This issue of the acquisition of statutory status is earmarked as a priority in the recently developed Strategic Directions 2010-2014 document of LIASA. At the 2009 LIASA Conference, a clear mandate was given for a national survey to be conducted to solicit the views of personnel that work in the LIS sector with regard to the said issue. The authors administered a short questionnaire to a sample population representing all categories of staff irrespective of whether they belonged to an association or not. The questionnaire was administered using Survey Monkey. This paper reports the results of that survey. Given the overwhelming support for the acquisition of statutory status, the authors examined significant elements that would need to be crafted into the governance structures of a statutory body for the sector.Department of HE and Training approved lis

Hotspot Zuidplaspolder: Climate adaptation in the Zuidplaspolder

Building at the lowest point in the Netherlands, in the Zuidplaspolder, is viewed as a challenge and not something that is impossible. The Xplorelab approach in the Hotspot Zuidplaspolder project is a combination of research, implementation of ideas into inspiring examples and evaluation

Feshbach resonances in 3He*-4He* mixtures

We discuss the stability of homonuclear and heteronuclear mixtures of 3He and 4He atoms in the metastable 2^3S_1 state (He*) and predict positions and widths of Feshbach resonances by using the Asymptotic Bound-state Model (ABM). All calculations are performed without fit parameters, using \emph{ab-initio} calculations of molecular potentials. One promising very broad Feshbach resonance (\Delta B=72.9^{+18.3}_{-19.3} mT) is found that allows for tuning of the inter-isotope scattering length.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figure