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The South African energy crisis harms the economy. Tax incentives are intended to help, but rules for incentives must be understood by all stakeholders for taxpayers to be encouraged to invest. Section 12L (S12L) is relatively new legislation that allows a tax deduction for verifiedyear-on-year energy efficiency savings in South Africa. Concurrent benefits are excluded from this tax incentive, to prevent a double reward for the same activity. Although the prevention of double benefits is commonly addressed in the field of measurement and verification (M), non-technical guidelines are not available. This is a critical shortcoming since multiple professions (tax, audit and legal) need to understand the technical M requirements of S12L. This study reviews the current legislation and interpretations of concurrent benefits in terms of S12L. It shows that multiple energy-related incentives are utilised by industries and that, therefore, it must be determined if different programmes overlap, so as to create concurrent benefits with S12L. It is then critical to correctly apply M to ensure exclusion of concurrent benefits. This study also provides a simplified methodology to evaluate concurrency, based on the S12L regulatory requirements and standard M methods. Three case studies show how concurrency can occur and how M practice is applied to exclude double benefits. The test for concurrency is shown to reduce to the following question: Is the same energy saving funded twice? The tests must be done to ensure no double benefit occurs. HIGHLIGHTS: • Multiple energy efficiency and power generation programmes are required to address the energy crisis South Africa. • Concurrency tests are developed to ensure double rewards are not paid for the same energy efficiency savings. • Simple and clear communication of the technical tests to different disciplines (e.g. energy, tax, audit and legal) is important. • Proposals for policy development and communication of S12L incentives and carbon tax are made.

The structural, phase stability, elastic and electronic properties of Sb-doped BBi have been systematically investigated in the zinc blende phase by means of the first-principle approach based on the density functional theory (DFT). The structural and elastic properties were computed by using the generalized gradient approximation proposed by Wu and Cohen (WC-GGA). Specifically, the calculated basic structural parameters, such as the lattice constant and bulk modulus, are in good agreement with the existing experimental measurements and theoretical calculations. The phase stability of BBi1-xSbx alloys in the zinc blende and rock salt phases has been investigated with the determination of the transition pressures (Pt) from the zinc blende (B3) to the rock salt (B1) phase. The electronic band structures were determined using the Tran–Blaha-modified Johnson functional. Furthermore, we investigated the mechanical properties and anisotropic behavior of the BBi1-xSbx alloys.

Deciding whether two different face photographs or voice samples are from the same person represent fundamental challenges within applied settings. To date, most research has focussed on average performance in these tests, failing to consider individual differences and within‐person consistency in responses. Here, participants completed the same face (Experiment 1) or voice matching test (Experiment 2) on two separate occasions, allowing comparison of overall accuracy across the two timepoints as well as consistency in trial‐level responses. In both experiments, participants were highly consistent in their performances. In addition, we demonstrated a large association between consistency and accuracy, with the most accurate participants also tending to be the most consistent. This is an important result for applied settings in which organisational groups of super‐matchers are deployed in real‐world contexts. Being able to reliably identify these high performers based upon only a single test informs regarding recruitment for law enforcement agencies worldwide.

Goat plays a crucial role in human livelihoods, being a major source of meat, milk, fiber, and hides, particularly under adverse climatic conditions. The goat genomics related to the candidate gene approach is now being used to recognize molecular mechanisms that have different expressions of growth, reproductive, milk, wool, and disease resistance. The appropriate literature on this topic has been reviewed in this article. Several genetic characterization attempts of different goats have reported the existence of genotypic and morphological variations between different goat populations. As a result, different whole-genome sequences along with annotated gene sequences, gene function, and other genomic information of different goats are available in different databases. The main objective of this review is to search the genes associated with economic traits in goats. More than 271 candidate genes have been discovered in goats. Candidate genes influence the physiological pathway, metabolism, and expression of phenotypes. These genes have different functions on economically important traits. Some genes have pleiotropic effect for expression of phenotypic traits. Hence, recognizing candidate genes and their mutations that cause variations in gene expression and phenotype of an economic trait can help breeders look for genetic markers for specific economic traits. The availability of reference whole-genome assembly of goats, annotated genes, and transcriptomics makes comparative genomics a useful tool for systemic genetic upgradation. Identification and characterization of trait-associated sequence variations and gene will provide powerful means to give positive influences for future goat breeding program.

Made available in DSpace on 2020-12-10T17:40:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2020-08-17 Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) 1. A trial was conducted to investigate the capacity of broiler chickens to consume bulky feeds during three stages of growth. These phases were from 1 to 15 d, 16 to 30 d and from 31 to 45 d. 2. A basal feed was serially diluted (0%, 2.5%, 5.0%, 10% or 15%) with one of five diluents (cellulose fibre, sawdust, rice husk, sand or vermiculite) to produce 25 feeds which were supplied on an ad libitumbasis to the birds in each phase. Cobb 500 (R) strain chicks were used, and, within each phase, each feed was given to nine individually-caged birds, 225 in total, distributed in a completely randomised design. 3. Intake increased initially, and then declined, as the proportion of each diluent increased. The consumption of feeds that limited intake were directly proportional to metabolic body weight and so a scaled feed intake, expressed as g/BW(0.67)per day, was calculated. There were large effects of feed type on intake, in the short term, with consumption of a bulky feed leading to higher intakes. 4. It was concluded the Water Holding Capacity (WHC) content of the feeds could be appropriate measurement of 'bulk' responsible for limiting intake and could be used to predict maximum feed intake capacities of broiler chickens fed bulky diets. Univ Estadual Paulista, Fac Ciencias Agr & Vet, Jaboticabal, Brazil Univ Kwazulu Natal, Dept Earth & Environm Sci, Sch Agr, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa Univ Estadual Paulista, Fac Ciencias Agr & Vet, Jaboticabal, Brazil FAPESP: 2013/25761-4 CNPq: 142192//2016-3

The United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16 calls for the establishment of peaceful, just and inclusive societies. The security sector has the potential to contribute to SDG16 through the fulfilment of its traditional and non-traditional security tasks. However, the security sector can also detract from SDG16 when it acts outside the confines of the law. Good governance of the sector is therefore a prerequisite to achieving SDG16, and parliaments can make an important contribution to accountability and good governance. Parliaments contribute to both transparency and accountability of the sector through their various functions and act as a counterweight to executive dominance, including in the executive’s use of security forces. Yet, in times of crisis, states run a risk of executive dominance and executives are often quick to resort to the use of the security sector to address an array of challenges. This risk also emerged during the global Covid-19 pandemic where states used the security sector, notably the military and police, in various ways to respond to the pandemic. This study reviewed the utilisation of the security sector in South Africa, the Philippines and the UK during the first year of the Covid-19 outbreak, resulting in varied outcomes ranging from positive humanitarian contributions to misconduct and brutality that led to the death of citizens. The initial lockdowns in these countries constrained parliamentary activity, resulting in a lack of adequate parliamentary oversight of security sector utilisation when it was most needed. Parliaments did recover oversight of the sector to varied degrees, but often with limited depth of inquiry into the Covid-19 deployments. To prevent the security sector from detracting from SDG16, the study identified a need for a rapid parliamentary reaction capability to security sector utilisation, especially in cases of extraordinary deployments coupled with an elevated risk of executive dominance.

Made available in DSpace on 2022-04-29T08:40:49Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2022-01-01 1. Cobb and Ross broilers (200 of each sex and breed) were fed four phases of diets ad libitum formulated with balanced protein to match their amino acid requirements throughout growth. Ten birds per genotype were sampled and euthanised at two-weekly intervals from 14 to 112 d of age. All feathers were dry-plucked from each of the seven tracts (specific skin areas) and pulp (the centre of the feather filament) was removed from primary and secondary remiges. 2. Daily losses of feathers were collected from an additional 20 individually-caged broilers of each breed. These feathers were separated into natal down, contour feathers, remiges and rectrices and then pooled by type, sex and genotype to quantify water and protein contents. Only those feathers collected from male Cobb 500 MX broilers were analysed for amino acid content. 3. Amino acid contents of feathers from the seven tracts were measured only in Cobb males on days 1, 28 and 70; for pulp on days 28 and 70; and for the four types of moulted feathers. 4. Protein content on a dry matter basis remained relatively constant over all ages and tracts during growth. Water content decreased with age in both sexes and genotype. Lysine and methionine content in feathers decreased with age while cystine, valine, leucine and serine increased. Lysine, methionine and histidine levels were higher in pulp than in mature feathers whereas cystine and valine were higher in mature feathers than in pulp. 5. These results, together with information about moulting patterns in broilers, enabled the effects of age of the bird and of the type of feather, to be taken into account when determining the rate of deposition of amino acids in feathers. Department of Animal Science School of Agricultural and Veterinarian Sciences São Paulo State University (Unesp) Jaboticabal Nutrition & Care Evonik Operations GmbH School of Agricultural Earth and Environmental Sciences University of KwaZulu-Natal Department of Animal Science School of Agricultural and Veterinarian Sciences São Paulo State University (Unesp) Jaboticabal

Objectives Black Bengal goat (Capra hircus), a member of the Bovidae family with the unique traits of high prolificacy, skin quality and low demand for food is the most socioeconomically significant goat breed in Bangladesh. Furthermore, the aptitude of adaptation and disease resistance capacity of it is highly notable which makes its whole genome information an area of research interest. Data description The genomic DNA of a local (Chattogram, Bangladesh) healthy male Black Bengal goat (Capra hircus) was extracted and then sequenced. Sequencing was completed using the Illumina HiSeq 2500 sequencing platform and the draft assembly was generated using the “ARS1” genome as the reference. MAKER gene annotation pipeline was utilized to annotate 26,458 gene models. Genome completeness was assessed using BUSCO (Benchmarking Universal Single-Copy Orthologs) which showed 82.5% completeness of the assembled genome.

Inefficient compressed air systems in deep-level mines deteriorate energy performance and increase operational costs. Leaks, wastages, and misuse are common inefficiencies that necessitate an oversupply of compressed air. It is therefore important to identify where the opportunities for improvement are located. Underground mining equipment can be used to develop a zero-waste compressed air demand profile. This profile can then be simulated for the entire operation to determine a theoretical baseline. Noticeable inefficiencies are then identified by comparing the actual data with the zero-waste baselines. The results of this study showed that the surface operations oversupply compressed air by 15% (10 kg/s of air) per day. This requires an additional 80 MWh of electricity (14.5% of the total) and costs approximately R91 000 per day. The comparison with the zero-waste baselines showed that 7.9 kg/s of air is wasted at the underground levels during drilling periods, highlighting the areas that require mitigation projects to improve the performance while decreasing costs and wastages. Keywords zero-waste baseline; compressed air; deep-level mine

Growth differentiation factor 9 (GDF9) and bone morphogenetic protein 15 (BMP15) are two crucial fecundity genes 15 associated with litter size traits in the goat. Our previous study on GDF9 and BMP15 genes detected single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with litter size in Bangladeshi Black Bengal goats. In this study, Jamunapari and crossbred goats of Bangladesh were screened to identify polymorphisms in the GDF9 and BMP15 genes and to assess the association between identified SNPs and litter size. The genomic DNA from 100 goats (50 Jamunapari and 50 crossbred) was used in Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) to amplify the exon 2 of the GDF9 and exon 2 of the BMP15 gene. PCR products were sequenced employing the BigDye Terminator cycle sequencing protocol, to identify SNPs. A generalized linear model was utilized to perform the association analysis for identified SNPs and litter size. Seven SNPs were identified, of which four: C818CT, G1073A, G1189A and G1330T were in the GDF9 gene, three: G616T, G735A and G811A were in the BMP15 gene. G735A was a synonymous SNP, whereas the remaining were non-synonymous SNPs. Identified SNP loci in GDF9 were low polymorphic (PICBMP15 were moderately polymorphic (PIC≥0.25). The genotypes at the G1330T locus had a significant (p