Internet Protocol network architectures are gradually evolving from legacy flat networks to new modern software defined networking approaches. This evolution is crucial as it provides the ideal supporting network structure, architecture and framework that supports the technologies that are also evolving in software-based systems like Network Functions Virtualization (NFV). The connectivity requirements resulting from this paradigm shift in technology is being driven by new bandwidth requirements emanating from the huge number of new use cases from 5G networks and Internet of things (IoT) future technologies. Network security remains a key critical requirement of these new modern network architectures to deliver a highly available, reliable service and guaranteed quality of service. Unprotected networks will usually experience service interruptions and cases of system non-availability due to network attacks such as denial-of services and virus attacks which can render key network components unusable or totally unavailable. With the centralized approach of the Software Defined Networking architecture, the SDN controller becomes a key network point that is susceptible to internal and external attacks from hackers and many forms of network breaches. It being the heart of the SDN network makes it a single point of failure and it is crucial that the security of the controller is guaranteed to avoid unnecessary irrecoverable loss of valuable production time, data and money. The SDN controller design should be guided by a robust security policy framework with a very sound remedy and business continuity plan in the event of any form of a security attack. Security designs and research work in SDN controllers have been done with focus on achieving the most reliable and scalable platforms through self-healing and replication processes. In this dissertation the research that was done proposed a security solution for the SDN controller and evaluated the impact of the security solution on the overall SDN controller performance. As part of the research work literature review of the SDN controller and related technology carried out. The SDN controller interfaces were analyzed and the security threats that attack interfaces were explored. With link to a robust security framework a security solution was used in the experiments that analyzed the attacks from the external network sources which focused on securing the southbound interface by use of a netfilter with iptables firewall on the SDN controller. The SDN controller was subjected to denial service attack packets and the impact of the mitigation action observed on the SDN controller resources. Given that the network security layer introduced an additional overhead on the SDN controller's processors the security feature negatively affected the controller performance. The impact of the security overhead will inform on the future designs and possibly achieve a trade-off point between the level of security of the network and overall system performance due to security policies. The research analyzed and determined the performance impact of this crucial design aspect and how the additional loading due to network security affected the SDN controller normal operation.

This thesis presents a hybrid information security approach for data on physical documents. This system, called CryptoPaper, allows portions of a physical document be printed with a machine-readable code. This code contains original data and related information security properties. To read this code and access the encoded data, a scanning device with suitable image recognition technology is used. Using a cloud-based access control system, it can be ensured that only authorized users can interpret the machine-readable code and additional security properties can be verified.

The interim Constitution and the final Constitution, respectively Act 200 of 1996 and Act 108 of 1996, has ushered South Africa into a new era. An era that will be characterized by it's influence on our jurisprudential, political, socio-economic and religious rights. The Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995 in general and workplace forums in particular ushered our labour relations into a new era. It is our attempt by the legislature to foster corporatism at the enterprise. It is hoped that workplace participatory structures such as workplace forums will lead to: Better information flow and communication between management and the workers; better decision making by management; efficiency and productivity which will help the national economy. The legislative framework that regulates the establishment of workplace forums however, present certain problems. The major obstacles that the act create is, firstly; the granting of the sole right to call for the establishment of workplace forums to majority unions (section 80(2)) and secondly; the high threshold of 100 employees that is required by section 84 of the Labour Relations Act. These provisions are critically analysed from a comparative perspective. It is argued that the high threshold is totally inexplicable and unacceptable. It is contrary to the trend in Europe where experiments with workplace based structures were highly successful. This high threshold is also totally insensitive to the needs of SMME's. It is a known fact that workers in this sector are vulnerable, exploited and deserving of legislative or other forms of protection. The introduction or legislative facilitation of the establishment of workplace forums in SMME' s has potential to serve as a counterbalancing force. By engaging management and workers in a joint forum may of the problems in SMME's can be eradicated. The position of the majority unions is also untenable. The legislature has in fact disempowered those that it seeks to empower - the workers. In most countries studied, unions not necessarily majority unions have the right to trigger the process of establishing "workplace forums." In other countries, like Germany workers that are not union members can also trigger the process. This power that is give to majority unions also further marginalises SMME's. The SMME section is not sufficiently unionised because of the organizational problems that they present. In Britain for instance, only 8% of small companies are unionised. Unions will have logistic difficulties of organising and servicing a multitude of workplaces containing relatively small numbers of members. Section 80(2) and Section 84 of the Labour Relations Act will have to be revisited with a view of making workplace forums an all inclusive process and not one dominated by majority unions. The threshold for entitlement will have to be lowered so that more employees can enjoy the potential benefits of workplace base institutions.

This study examines the position of women in Basotho society. It examines the position that women occupy in the society both in their traditional and contemporary roles. This is later contrasted to the developments made at the level of the state to effect changes to improve the situation. The data used in the study pertain to the period after 1986 up to 1996, except where it was possible to include more current. The international community has established norms intended to guide the members of the respective conventions and treaties in making of their domestic laws. These guidelines operate as an indication of the member country's intention to abide by the norms and not to deliberately flout the principles involved. Lesotho has through the years signed and ratified a number of these conventions. There has been quite a significant number of problems encountered in applying equality rights. Women in Lesotho as in the rest of the developing world are faced with discrimination on at least two levels, being female and being a member of the wrong race. The issue is whether they are also as humans, entitled to the benefit of universal human rights, or is it the exclusive preserve of men. It is the purpose of this study to examine the extent to which the international norms and human rights standards have impacted on the municipal law in Lesotho to grant equality rights to women. Finally, it is concluded that the Government of Lesotho has failed to achieve its obligations under the Conventions and international norms to which it has bound itself. Although legislation has been passed and applauded even at an international level, little progress can be made due to the half hearted attempts by the legislature to grant rights to women while not wanting to disturb the run of things and curtail the power that men have over them. This is likely not to be popular at some quarters especially with traditionalists. If however women are to be given equality in rights, the reforms have to be made.

The peacekeeping mechanism is arguably the most important tool the United Nations can resort to when dealing with threats to international peace and security. Since the end of the Cold War, a number of Security Council resolutions and peacekeeping policies have acknowledged the importance of increasing the number of female peacekeepers in the uniformed components of UN missions in order to adapt to the changing nature of violent conflicts and to address new security threats. This study focuses on the integration of women in peace operations and their impact on both the mission and the host population by exploring the case of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). MINUSTAH was seen by Haitians as a return to international occupation, which was exacerbated by the many cases recorded of sexual violence by peacekeepers against the host population. The MINUSTAH case tests the argument that women peacekeepers improve a UN mission’s operational effectiveness because of their assumed inherent ability to connect with the host community and tame the violent behaviour of their male counterparts. This study argues that without addressing issues of men and violent masculinities in military institutions, providing female peacekeepers with proper pre-deployment training, and deploying more women in front-line positions, simply raising the number of women deployed in the field is insufficient to really improve the operational effectiveness of UN missions. Keywords: UN peacekeeping, gender mainstreaming, women peacekeepers, UNSCR 1325, MINUSTAH, Haiti / Mini Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Political Sciences / MA / Unrestricted

<p>The unexpected and unprecedented global pandemic of COVID-19 has brought dramatic changes to the whole world. As a result of social distancing instituted to slow the pandemic, teleworking has become the new norm in many organizations. The prevalence of teleworking has brought not only benefits to organizations, but also security risks. Although teleworking has existed for decades and many security related issues have been studied by previous research, the researcher didn’t find any studies that have assessed organization employee’s security awareness and concerns in teleworking. Considering the vital importance of human security awareness in protecting information security, it is necessary to learn the security awareness situation in teleworking. Furthermore, employees with low security awareness should be trained to improve the awareness level. Therefore, this research intends to examine the current teleworking security awareness and concerns in organizations by conducting a survey of workers. Through the survey answers, the researcher found that the security awareness varies in groups of teleworkers who are at different ages, from different industries and different-sized organizations. Meanwhile, the researcher also found that COVID-19 pandemic does not have much impact on people’s security concern in teleworking scenarios. <br></p>

Although it has been more than twenty years since the end of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the country is still on its path to recovery, which has been very slow and very painful. The unemployment rate is staggering high, the brain drain presents a serious issue, and the country's political system looks like anything but sustainable. The Dayton Agreement may have stopped the war, but it also created a complex political structure that does not encourage the cooperation among the three constituent peoples on the scale as it was envisioned. The aim of this work is to investigate to what extent the Dayton Agreement has solidified the constructed divisions and hatreds between the ethnic groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Furthermore, the thesis seeks to examine in which ways the Dayton Agreement facilities and legitimizes the political elites' quest for securitizing the ethnic identity of the respective groups. It will also try to explain the reasons behind the rapid rise of nationalism that led to the brutal war as some of these motives may still reflect the current situation in the post- Dayton period. It does so by providing a theoretical framework, which reflects the constructivist approach that will be reflected upon when examining the empirical data from post-conflict situation in Bosnia and...

While composite indicators are considered robust in measuring food security, outdated data and outliers challenge their reliability. Outdated data can occur when national databases are not frequently updated while outliers are extremely small or large values in a study. Outdated data could be referred to as missing current data in composite indicators used for annual benchmarking exercises, where data must be frequently updated. Besides hindering useful information within an index, outdated data could also result in outliers in a database, especially when the outdated or missing current data are imputed by estimation. Studies that have assessed the robustness of composite indicators highlight that outdated data and outliers could bias results, thereby hindering an index's reliability. However, depending on the methods used when constructing a composite indicator, some methods can be considered robust even with the presence of outliers in a data point. Outdated national data could hinder countries from tracking the progress of international, national or regional commitments, such as the Sustainable Development Goals, while outliers could act as an unintended benchmark. This study assessed the impacts of outdated data and outliers on Kenya's scores and rankings in the Global Food Security Index (GFSI). The study objective was achieved by assessing Kenya's performance in the 2019 GFSI result before and after removing outliers from the GFSI data points and updating Kenya's outdated indicators. Winsorisation was used to remove the outliers from the GFSI database, while the Spearman correlation and Paired t-tests were used to test for the statistical significance of the outdated data and outliers. The study revealed that while Kenya's 2019 GFSI database did not have outliers, outliers in other countries' data points impacted Kenya's score and rank. For example, the winsorisation of outliers for other countries reduced Kenya's 2019 overall GFSI score by six points. Moreover, thirteen indicators in Kenya's 2019 GFSI database were found to be outdated. However, despite Kenya's score improving from updating the outdated data, the impact was minimal to increase the GFSI's mean score for all countries. That is, updating Kenya's outdated indicators was found not to differ significantly from zero. The study concluded that Kenya's score and rank in the 2019 GFSI were affected by the outdated data in Kenya's database and outliers in other countries' data. The study, therefore, recommended that Kenya should update its national database and allow open access to the national data while the GFSI should identify and remove outliers from the data points. / Mini Dissertation (MSc Agric (Agricultural Economics))--University of Pretoria, 2021. / Mastercard Foundation Scholarship / Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development / MSc Agric (Agricultural Economics) / Unrestricted

The thesis examines the legal efficacy of the current South African legal framework governing security rights in movable property. This is done by bench-marking the South African framework against selected international and regional secured transactions law frameworks, making it the first South African study to be conducted in this manner. This vertical comparative study establishes and gives content to the key policy objectives and fundamental principles of each examined legal framework, and considers their interrelationship. Aspects of a secured-transactions-law framework, included in the study as part of key policy objectives and fundamental principles, which should influence reform, include: (1) whether to implement a unitary, non-unitary, or commercially-facilitative approach to establish a single legal framework for security rights in movable property; (2) whether to change the method used to create and allow the third-party effect of the security right; (3) how comprehensive the scope of a legally and commercially relevant legal framework should be; (4) what the preferred publicity method should be; (5) how to develop transparent and predictable priority rules; (6) how to adopt effective enforcement measures; and (7) the extent different types of creditor should be treated equally by the law. The study presents a robust framework, the first of its kind in South Africa, pivoting on key policy objectives and fundamental principles the South African legislature and policymakers must consider establishing a legally efficient secured transactions law framework. / Thesis (LLD)--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Mercantile Law / LLD / Unrestricted

The quality of South Africa's raw potable water resources is severely impacted by eutrophication (nutrient enrichment). As much as two-thirds of the reservoir impounded resource may be affected. Wastewater effluents and/or the integration of wastewater return flows as part of the water balances of many reservoirs constitute the primary source of this nutrient pollution. South Africa's historical awareness and understanding of the eutrophication threat to surface waters is comparable with that of other, similarly-afflicted, countries. In particular, the need to manage phosphorus was recognised as early as 1962 when South Africa promulgated one of the first (global) regulations for phosphorus in wastewater effluents. More recently, eutrophication has been ranked as a high priority by the the National Water Resource Strategy. Despite this background, phosphorus removal from wastewater effluents in South Africa remains virtually unregulated. Additionally, there is no resource-directed protocol for the accounting of all sources of phosphorus (or other pollutants) at a catchment level, rendering problematic, if not impossible, the fair and equitable allocation of levies on wastewater discharges. This dissertation examines how wastewater-originating eutrophication is regulated in the USA and Europe, with phosphorus as a central focus. A comparative assessment of the equivalent situation in South Africa is provided and the shortcomings of the latter highlighted. As a solution, I suggest an equitable and transparent scheme of pollutant accounting by individual source, ideally suited to the allocation of waste discharge levies. Applied against a specific resource requirement, for example an identified need to reduce phosphorus in a particular reservoir, this approach also provides a legally sound scheme for pollutant load regulation and permitting.