Statistical predictive validity has regularly been demonstrated for the complex selection procedure by which young high-potential administrative entrants are recruited to the Civil Service. There is, however, a largely unexplored qualitative aspect to recruitment as well. For most successful candidates, taking up appointment as trainee administrators represents a major life-transition - from full-time education to full-time employment. What is that experience like? How do they go about making sense of their new circumstances? Six trainees took part in the enquiry, which centred on a series of interviews carried out over the course of their first year at work. The focus in this ideographic study is on the individual as learner In a natural setting. Analysis of the accounts produced is set in a social cognition framework, and something of the approach of the ethnographer is also brought to bear. Particular attention is paid to the status of narrative as knowledge. A simple model is outlined for narrative-based reflection as a means to development, with the prospect of the individual acting as his or her own mentor in the process.

While much research has been conducted on the experiences of individuals with inflammatory bowel diseases, there remains a dearth of research conducted on those affected by polyposis conditions. As a result, little is known about the lived experiences of those with polyposis conditions, especially in the cases of parents of pediatric patients with these conditions. This study qualitatively explored the lived experiences of parents of children with polyposis conditions, specifically Juvenile Polyposis Syndrome and Peutz-Jeghers Syndrome. Hermeneutic phenomenology was used to explore the lived experiences of seven parents of children diagnosed with polyposis conditions through semi-structured interviews. Collected data was analysed using Lindseth and Norberg (2004)’s Phenomenological Hermeneutical Method for Researching Lived Experience. In total, four major themes comprising of twelve sub-themes were revealed. Parents discussed feeling grateful for the use of family-centred approaches by their children’s physicians as well as access to medical care for their children, which encouraged them to demonstrate a proactive approach towards their children’s health maintenance. Furthermore, they explained that while seeking information concerning their children’s conditions was anxiety-inducing, discussing their experiences with others with situations similar to theirs was validating and informative. The participants described the importance of advocating for their children within and outside of the medical system, and the responsibility they feel in teaching their children to undertake the advocating process for themselves. Lastly, the parents reflected on the impact their children’s diagnoses have had on their relationships with themselves, their families and their support networks. Overall, the findings from this study are in-line with findings from prior research, except in the case of the ‘Teaching the children to speak for themselves’ theme which proves to be a novel contribution to the literature. The shared key aspects of the phenomenon indicate that focus should be placed on the utilization of family-centred care by physicians, the development of support groups for parents, and on educating physicians on how to best facilitate parents as they model advocating behaviours to pediatric patients. This study provides insight into the lived experiences of parents of children with polyposis syndromes, informing the medical community of how the needs of this group can be better met. Furthermore, the qualitative nature of this research will provide the polyposis, chronic illness and rare illness literatures with information it has been lacking, using a valuable methodological perspective.

The purpose of this thesis was to explore the potential of a designed physical outdoor environment to improve the social environment and thereby enhance the psychological healing process at Psychiatric institutions. Weskoppies Psychiatric Hospital situated in Pretoria West served as a model for testing the hypothesis. The physical and social environment at Weskoppies was analyzed through observations, interviews and literature research. Findings from analysis and theoretical research regarding the influences that physical and social outdoor environments have on mental health, were synthesized to establish design guidelines. These informed the design decision making process and assisted in the proposal of an outdoor environment with emotional healing potential. An open space framework and catalytic sketch plan was designed to illustrate the application of the design guidelines. The author found that an outdoor environment that encourage independence, purpose, consciousness, rest, connectedness and physical activities have the potential to enhance the psychological healing process. The open space framework and sketch plan proved that these guidelines can be accommodated on different scales. / Dissertation (ML(Prof))--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Architecture / unrestricted

This thesis topic is focused on the experience of entering and revealing architecture. An entrance is not solely about the physical form of a door, rather it is the beginning of a building; a conversation between public and private, light and dark, safety and danger. The entrance is also a threshold for smell, texture, sound, light, and color. It is the preface of a poem that will lead you to fall in love with the rhythm of the building. It is where beauty begins and never ends. / Master of Architecture

The increasing usage of numerous mobile applications can cause impairments in cellular network performance. Such impairments result in performance degradation that can reduce the satisfaction level of subscribers. Consequently, subscribers may switch between different network operators to get good user experience. Thus the success of any network operator will primarily depend on the ability to ensure quality of experience (QoE), where QoE is a measure of the subscriber’s satisfaction level and is closely related to the performance of networks. Our work aims to identify the key performance indicators (KPI)which in turn can comprehensively model the QoE. Since the popularity of web browsing and video streaming applications continues to increase rapidly, analyzing the KPI of such applications will help to identify the parameters which degrade network performance the most. The analyzed KPIs are tested with different user equipments and different network load. This thesis work also includes tuning the Radio Network Controller (RNC) parameters to analyze the variation in user experience. Important performance metrics of webbrowsing and video streaming applications have been considered to measure the QoE. Atest environment for QoE estimation was developed using real Radio Network Controller(RNC) and simulatable models of the Core Network(CN) and User Equipments (UEs). Simulations with this test set up and subsequent analyses help to identify some of the RNC parameters which influence the QoE. Furthermore, simulatable models of widely used UEssuch as iPhone 6 and iPhone 3 were included in the test environment to assess their relative performance for web browsing and video streaming applications. Our simulation results confirm the superior performance of iPhone 6 which reinforces the reliability of our testbed. Finally, the simulations also helped to illustrate the degradation in QoE caused by the increase in RNC load.

A study of the experiential aspects of architecture using a small house as the vehicle for exploration. / Master of Architecture

L’expérience juvénile est retracée à partir des actes du quotidien et des évènements plus exceptionnels. Jusqu’à la Grande Guerre, et encore durant l’entre-deux-guerres, les enfants des milieux populaires entretiennent une relation riche avec les espaces publics auxquels sont attribués de nombreux rôles. Des cultures enfantines et adolescentes se construisent. Cependant, après 1945, la vie urbaine s’appauvrit au profit d’une logique utilitaire. À chaque espace tend à être attribué un rôle : dans les rues, la circulation autour de deux pôles, le trottoir et la chaussée, dans les espaces verts, la détente et les loisirs, les espaces interstitiels représentés par les terrains vagues ou les anciennes fortifications sont bâtis et disparaissent de l’accessibilité publique. Les contraintes sont de plus en plus fortes, les enfants sont progressivement refoulés des espaces publics qu’ils occupaient jusqu’alors. À la fin de la période étudiée, la rue n’est plus guère le lieu des pratiques récréatives qui se trouvent circonscrites dans des espaces strictement définis à cet usage. En opposition à l’utilisation libre des espaces extérieurs, l’encadrement autour des enfants et des adolescents s’accroît. En conséquence, ils perdent progressivement leur légitimité à agir seuls, par eux-mêmes en tant qu’enfants ou adolescents. Dès lors, l’espace public contribue à matérialiser et à fortifier les catégories d’âge en accentuant les différences entre les enfants, les adolescents et les adultes, à la fois par des lieux et des activités. / The experience of the young experience is traced according to the acts of the everydaylife as well as the the more exceptional events. Until the Great War, and still during the interwar period, working class children maintain a rich relation with the public space, which have numerous roles. Child and adolescent cultures develop. However, after the SecondWorldWar, urban life becomes impoverished for the benefit of a utilitarian logic. Every space tends to have an attributed role : in the streets, the movement is divided between two poles, the pavement and the road ; in the green spaces, the relaxation and the leisure activities. Interstitial spaces are built-up and no more available. The constraints get stronger and stronger. Children are gradually rejected of the public spaces places which they occupied and are more and more supervised. At the end of studied period, the street isn’t quite the place of the entertaining practices which are confined in spaces used exclusively for this purpose. Children and young people lose gradually their legitimacy to act alone or by themselves. The use of public space contributes to strengthen the categories of age by stressing the differences between children, teenagers and adults in terms of places and activities.

MSc (Nursing), Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand / The purpose of this study was to determine the knowledge of nurses working in ICU with respect to evidence based guidelines for prevention of ventilator associated pneumonia. A non experimental, descriptive, correlational and contextual two phase research design was used. The first phase of the study consisted in validating the data collection instrument for applicability to the South African context. The second phase of the study used the instrument validated in phase one to test the knowledge of nurses working in ICU. Data analysis was done by means of descriptive and inferential statistics using frequency distributions, cross-tables, means, standard deviations and Pearson correlation coefficient. The knowledge of 83 nurses working in ICU from two hospitals of the private health sector and one hospital of the public health sector in Gauteng was tested using the data collection instrument validated by ICU nursing experts. Knowledge of ICU trained and non ICU trained nurses working in ICUs of the three hospitals was found to be lacking in the evidence based guidelines for prevention of ventilator associated pneumonia. Of the 83 participants, 18 (21.69%; CI 95% 13.4% ; 32.1%) achieved a pass mark of 70% on the multiple choice part of the questionnaire and were considered to have adequate knowledge on the evidence based guidelines for prevention of VAP. The mean score of participants was 4.25 (SD 1.537 CI 95% 3.92; 4.59) on nine questions. The difference in the mean average score of ICU trained nurses and non ICU trained nurses was very similar demonstrating no statistically significant difference in the knowledge of the two groups of nurses. A weak correlation between years working in ICU and knowledge was found, but this correlation may be clinically insignificant. Recommendations to address this lack of knowledge of ICU nurses were given for clinical nursing practice, nursing education as well as for nursing research.

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to understand children’s school experiences during the 2018 Nicaraguan uprising. The main participants were 10 children from first through sixth grade (one per grade) who participated in phases one, two, and three, along with their parents and teachers. The research questions inquired into how the sociopolitical crisis impacted students’ experiences, their parents’ and teachers’ viewpoints and perceptions of the events in terms of their children’s school experiences, and the strategies the adults used to manage the children’s stress caused by the events. The study is based on a theoretical framework of justice and democracy developed by John Dewey (1963), Lev Vygotsky (1978), Paulo Freire (1974), and Urie Bronfenbrenner (1979). The study also examined the importance of cognitive development of children, as posited by Jean Piaget (1963), and its relationship with their school experiences during the 2018 uprising. The data were collected in a period of ten weeks from mid-June to mid-August 2019. Students drew images, took photographs (photovoice), and answered questions during three interviews to share their stories about the event. The data were analyzed using Johnny Saldaña’s (2011) coding process.The study found that the children had built up a positive relationship with their teachers and parents and had developed a negative relationship with the police. The findings also revealed that 18 months later, the children still did remember the socio-political crisis and that talking about it triggered sadness, fear, and nervousness. In contrast, their parents and teachers believed that the children’s learning experiences were not affected by the 2018 uprising. They blamed a faulty education system for the children’s reduced learning. Because of the findings, the study recommends including a dialog approach among students that encourage students’ self-reflection and critical thinking, reading and writing strategies that encourage students to write about stressful situations and contracting with counselors to provide a series of workshops to educate teachers and parents about students’ emotions.

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