Masters in Public Administration - MPA / In January 1997, Robben Island Museum (RIM) opened its doors to the public as a tourist destination. This was done without any formal management structure or strategic planning, to cope not only with its mandate as the first National Museum of the new democratic South Africa, but also to meet the demand of the great interest of visitors to see this prison where the icon of the liberation struggle, Nelson Mandela was incarcerated for 27 years. This operational take-off without formal administrative management structure and strategic planning was understandable given the social and political transitional climate in the country. The effect thereof as the old adage states ‘failure to plan is planning for failure’ seems to hold true for RIM who is struggling to become a well-managed national heritage site. RIM over the years have been beset with governance and management challenges and enjoyed continual bad publicity. The study’s aim was to bring an understanding of what the major governance and managerial challenges were and to make recommendations to address those. The study was guided by a central research question namely What were the administrative and management challenges of RIM and in what ways did it impact on the operational effectiveness of RIM as a national museum and World heritage site. A number of findings emanated from the study. A key one was that clarity of roles and responsibilities of the council and the management is required. Furthermore, the vision and mission of RIM must inform the formulation of strategies to give effect thereto. This in turn must be the base for the development of an appropriate organisational structure to implement the strategies. A number of recommendation stems from the research. An important one was that appointment must be on the basis of ‘fit for purpose’. This means that staff with the right skills and capacity should be appointed as a matter of priority. In conclusion, the findings of the study could be used by other heritage organisations faced with similar organisational challenges. / Robben Island Museum Training and Development Staff Bursary

Please read the abstract (Summary) in the section 00front of this document / Thesis (D Phil (Information Science))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Information Science / unrestricted

Civil infrastructure construction sites including incomplete structures and unsecured resources are among the most vulnerable environments to hurricane conditions. Hurricane driven damages cause disruption of construction sites and considerable schedule delays, and thus negatively impact the efficiency of the construction projects. This research aims to study current best practices on securing construction sites from hurricane conditions and evaluate the performance of the preparedness plan. To do that, first, an interview-survey is conducted with key project personnel from multiple construction companies. Then, the insight from the interviews serves to do a Micro and Macro Environmental Analysis. For further analysis, a Balanced Scorecard is used to suggest metrics to measure and improve the performance of the Hurricane Preparedness Plan. The findings from this research improves the organizational processes and enhances the assessment of disaster preparedness, which ultimately generates new and highly specific knowledge on disaster mitigation and preparedness guidelines for construction sites.

This diploma thesis deals with automatic task processing, especially with automatic processing of forms on web pages. The thesis throws light on the theoretical and practical matter. At the beginning of this thesis are described the reasons, why this topic were chosen. Also there are mentioned the possible uses of application, realized on this principles. Foremost simplification of retrieval of data with standardized (but general) format from common users, which could be used for data mining process. For creating this kind of application is described concepts of its implementation, including description of problematic parts and their possible solution. In this part is mentioned algorithm, which deals with security limitation of current web browsers -- so-called cross-site scripting. One part of this thesis is description of current commercial and non-commercial solutions, which at least partly fulfills the demands of the application. At the conclusion is analyzed functionality of created application and proposed advancements and improvements for creating new versions of application

The aim of diploma thesis is analysis of the company and Industrial site Průmyslový Park Karviná, to introduce organizational structure of the company, licence and posibilities of PPK. To try describe the structure of tenants, abstract of basic results and findings of the strategic analysys. Proposal of advancements of the site and try to find some strategic points in decision making.

The thesis generally analyzes functions and content of retail web sites. Author uses his experience from his current employment, where he administers web site of one of the main retail chains in the Czech Republic. Importance of this subject is seen in its recency, when the usage of internet rises in many human activities and shopping is one of them. The aim of this document is to find characteristics of today's market and based on these it tries to predict trends that will influence the shape of commerce on internet in near future.

Forest road building and timber harvesting operations have been recognized as principal causes of forest soil degradation. These activities can result in accelerated soil erosion, excessive scarification, and/or increased soil density, which may adversely affect site productivity. A study of landing areas emphasize the deficiencies in current rehabilitation guidelines Increased soil density on both summer and winter landings was still evident at 30 cm and the soil nutrient quality was poor. Two field tests of a green fallow system on subsoil materials exposed by erosion and landing construction proved successful in building site nutrient capital to acceptable levels. Seedling growth response to green fallow crop establishment in the coastal study verified these findings. A benefit-cost analysis of several forest soil rehabilitation scenarios demonstrated the importance of including secondary and intangible factors. From a pecuniary standpoint, based on primary benefits and costs, rehabilitation was economically feasible only when a low social discount rate (2%) and an optimistic stumpage increase projection (3% per year), were used. A discussion of some secondary and intangible benefits (i.e., harvesting rates, employment, government revenues, erosion control, and industry image) stresses the need for effective forest soil rehabilitation. / Forestry, Faculty of / Graduate

No description available.

The purpose of this thesis was to study the students’ perspective on their use of Facebook to further their studies. There were three research questions: (1) To what extent do students use Facebook to further their studies? (2) In what ways do students use Facebook to further their studies? (3) What do students believe are the ways that Facebook can be used by colleges and universities to help students with their studies? There were three major themes relating to usage of Facebook: non-academic usage, curricular, and co-curricular. Most of the students indicated they used Facebook to stay in touch with people they already knew. With regard to academic usage, the answers given related mostly to professors’ offers of support, collaborations with projects and assignments, and cheating on exams. There were mixed responses about whether students wanted professors to make use of Facebook in classes and how, with many indicating that they wanted to keep Facebook separate from their curricular activities. Students that were in the education fields were more than willing to use Facebook to help them in their studies than students in other majors.

The Gray Fossil Site (GFS) is one of the richest Cenozoic terrestrial localities in the eastern United States. This study describes the first talpid specimens recovered from the GFS. Using measurements and comparisons of dental and humerus morphology, I identify 4 talpids (Parascalops nov. sp., Quyania cf. Q. europaea, Mioscalops (= Scalopoides) sp., and an unidentified stem desman) occurring at the GFS. Humeral morphology has been used to diagnose talpid species and study relationships. A geometric morphometric analysis showed that humerus shape is highly reflective of locomotor ecology in extant talpids and allows ecological inferences for fossil talpids. Hierarchical cluster analysis using morphometric data allowed examination of similarity among taxa and helped to secondarily verify taxonomic designations for the GFS taxa. The resulting phenogram showed strong similarity to the most up-to-date molecular cladogram and actually matched phylogenetic relationships substantially better than any morphological cladistic analyses to date.