Yes / There is increasing legislative and public pressure for the design and build of road infrastructure schemes to achieve better sustainability performance. Roadside noise barriers (RNBs) form a major part of the growing road infrastructure system in mitigating undesirable road noise to impacted communities. However, the relative sustainability of common RNBs is little understood in the research and industry literature. This makes it difficult for stakeholders to make informed decisions with regards to the sustainable design and procurement of RNBs. This paper presents nowel research carried out to assess and rank the relative sustainability of 13 RNB types using three multi criteria analysis (MCA) techniques, i.e. Simple Additive Weighting (SAW), Preference Ranking Organisation MeTHod for Enrichment Evaluations (PROMETHEE), and Elimination et Choice Translating Reality (ELECTRE III). The paper concludes that the presented sustainability rankings of the main RNB types from least sustainable to most sustainable will support the relevant stakeholders, involved in the planning, design, and procurement stages, to evaluate the sustainability of RNB options as either part of a large highways scheme or standalone project. The presented results will save significant analysis time and costs in cases whereby it is unfeasible to conduct MCAs. The presented sustainability asssessment methodology may also provide the basis for an industry sustainability certification sceheme and in turn support advancing the sustainability transport agenda. / FP7 Quiesst research grant funded by the EU.

We use molecular mechanics (MM) simulations with the tight-binding (TB) potential to study local and global instabilities in initially defect-free finite specimens of gold crystals deformed in shear, simple shear, tension/compression, simple tension/compression, and triaxial tension/compression. The criteria used to delineate local instabilities in a system include the following: (i) a second order spatial derivative of the displacement field having large values relative to its average value in the body, (ii) the minimum eigenvalue of the Hessian of the potential energy of an atom becoming nonpositive, (iii) and structural changes represented by a high value of the common neighborhood parameter. A specimen becomes globally unstable when its potential energy decreases significantly with a small increase in its deformations. It is found that the three criteria for local instability are satisfied essentially simultaneously at the same atomic position. Deformations of a specimen are quite different when it is deformed with some bounding surfaces free from external forces as opposed to essential boundary conditions prescribed on all bounding surfaces. It is found that the initial unloaded configuration (or the reference configuration) of the minimum potential energy has significant in-plane stresses on the bounding surfaces and nonzero normal stresses at interior points. In tensile/compressive deformations of a rectangular prismatic nanobar the yield stress defined as the average axial stress when the average axial stress vs. the average axial strain curve exhibits a sharp discontinuity depends upon the specimen size; a similar result holds for simulations of shear deformations. Specimens deformed with essential boundary conditions on all bounding surfaces experience instabilities at a higher value of the average strain than identical specimens deformed similarly but with one or more pairs of opposite bounding surfaces traction free. For the former set of deformations, the response of a specimen prior to the onset of instability is the same as that of a hyperelastic body with the strain energy derived from the TB potential and deformations obeying the Cauchy-Born rule. Specimens with some traction free bounding surfaces experience local instabilities prior to the onset of a global instability but the two instabilities occur simultaneously in specimens with essential boundary conditions prescribed on all bounding surfaces. It is believed that because of residual stresses in the reference configuration, the average axial stress at yield in compression is nearly one-half of that in tension. / Ph. D.

Yes / The surface transport infrastructure (i.e. road and rail) has seen increasing pressure in recent years to achieve better sustainability performance. Transport Noise Reducing Devices (NRDs) form a major part of the surface transport infrastructure system in mitigating undesirable surface noise pollution to impacted communities. Their sustainability is a growing interest for practitioners and policy makers in this area as NRDs projects now have to balance integrating and assessing social, environmental, and economic objectives besides meeting key technical requirements. This paper presents an account of the first study carried out to assess the absolute sustainability of NRDs via the application of multi criteria analysis (MCA) techniques. The general procedure, selection of criteria, data gathering, and the use of three MCA techniques, SAW (Simple Additive Weighting), PROMETHEE (Preference Ranking Organisation MeTHod for Enrichment Evaluations), and ELECTRE III (Elimination et Choice Translating Reality), to assess the absolute sustainability of two built and operating European NRDs projects (one in Spain, and one in Italy) is presented. The novel concept of defining an Optimal Hypothetic Ideal Solution (OHIS) to assess the sustainability of NRDs in absolute terms to achieve this end is also introduced and discussed. The presented case studies will thus provide a useful model for practitioners to adopt or amend to conduct their own assessments of NRDs' sustainability. The paper further concludes that the generation of index values by the three MCA techniques to denote the overall absolute sustainability of solutions is a useful feature for communicating the sustainability of NRDs across a broad range of stakeholders, and for conducting “what-if” analyses. The presented research could also support broader aims of developing harmonized sustainability standards for the NRDs industry to adopt and so forward the sustainability transport agenda.

The current decision-making processes involved in Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) in South Africa suffer from a lack of coherence and do not include evaluation of trade-offs between qualitative and quantitative impacts, as well as environmental, economic, and social dimensions. In addition, insufficient capacity and knowledge among authorities, a lack of objectivity among Environmental Assessment Practitioners (EAPs), and mediocre reports add to the problems associated with effective decision-making. This work presents a framework aimed at improving the effectiveness and objectivity of the decision-making process applied in South Africa’s EIAs in the energy sector. A number of decision-making models and tools are available to researchers and practitioners throughout the world that could potentially be applied in EIAs. Among these are Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA), Rapid Impact Assessment Matrix (RIAM), and Multi Criteria Analysis (MCA). Each of the tools has its own advantages and disadvantages. With respect to the CBA, its biggest disadvantage is the fact that it requires conversion into monetary terms of all impacts, which is sometimes difficult to achieve. The RIAM, on the other hand, fails to provide a systematic approach to the ranking of alternatives. Both of these issues are addressed by the MCA tools. The MCA framework, furthermore, is universal, transparent, easy to replicate, and does not require a particularly large amount of labour and financial resources to complete. It is, however, subjective, but this shortcoming can be overcome by making the decision process more transparent. The framework proposed in this research paper is based on the Multi Criteria Analysis (MCA) technique that allows the identification of the proposed development's cumulative impact versus the current status of the environment. It then compares possible alternatives, where available, in order to identify the most optimal solution. The proposed solution takes into account the trade-offs between the different impact metrics. The research methodology followed in this paper comprised four steps, namely:<ul><li> Selection of case studies, </li><li> Information collection, </li><li> Framework application and testing and </li><li> Feedback. </li></ul> The development of the framework followed an eight-step approach that is generic for MCA and was tested on two case studies that have already gone through the Environmental Impact Assessment process, i.e. the Open Cycle Gas Turbine (OCGT) plant in the Western Cape and the Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) plant in the Northern Cape. The former was evaluated against the "no-go option", but included a decision tree comprised of impact areas, categories of impacts and dimensions (environmental, social, and economic). The latter included alternatives for four components of the project, but the decision tree comprised only of categories and dimensions. The effectiveness of the framework was verified by testing the results of the case studies against the recommendations proposed in the respective Environmental Impact Reports. In all cases, but one, the results of the framework correlated with the recommendations made by the Environmental Assessment Practitioners in the respective studies. In addition, a workshop with the decision-makers was held to obtain their viewpoints regarding the usefulness of the framework in their decision-making environment. These decision-makers supported the use of the framework in their environment as it offered an integrated and transparent approach to the evaluation of projects and alternatives. They emphasised, however, that the decision-making process was complex and the application of the framework alone would not be able to address all the challenges. The case studies demonstrated that the proposed framework could be successfully applied in the process of undertaking impact assessments in the energy sector. It can be used to determine the trade-offs between impacts and dimensions, while taking into consideration the opinions of specialists and decision-makers when assigning weights. The framework has the ability to clearly illustrate the benefit of introducing mitigation measures and it also indicates an alternative that produces the optimal cumulative impact. In conclusion, the work presented contributes to the new body of knowledge in the field of Environmental Impact Assessment in the energy sector as it will assist authorities in making objective and informed decisions, while ensuring greater transparency in the process. It also opens opportunities for conducting follow-on investigations, such the application of the framework in other sectors of the economy, undertaking a sensitivity analysis to compare the range of scores used in the evaluation of impacts, and investigating the possibility of acquiring input from Interested and Affected Parties (I&APs) and integrating those into the framework. / Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Graduate School of Technology Management (GSTM) / unrestricted

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The question this contribution sets out to address is whether law can be regarded as a science. This notion is readily accepted by many, yet it is submitted that a proper theoretical justification for such an assumption is usually missing. The traditional primary sources of law, South African case law and legislation, distinguish between legal practice and legal science, but the basis of the distinction is not clear. However, an entire body of literature in the philosophy of science has developed around the question of when a discipline will amount to science. Various demarcation criteria proposed in philosophy of science are considered. These include that science uses the scientific method, is susceptible to falsification, is puzzle-solving within a paradigm or renders beneficial results. None of these criteria offer a satisfactory solution to the problem. The proposition by a group of philosophers including Herman Dooyeweerd, Marinus Stafleu and DFM Strauss, that the answer to the demarcation question is to be found in modal abstraction, is then considered. Modal abstraction amounts to a consideration of reality (persons, things, theories and rules) from one or more defined point(s) of entry. It is an artificial and learnt manner of thinking as it approaches reality from the perspective of one of the modalities of being. For example, juridical abstraction would mean that a cow is considered as the object of someone‟s proprietary rights. An abstract idea of the cow‟s characteristics, from a juridical point of view, is formed and the rules of property law are applied. A number of South African legal philosophers, amongst others Van Zyl, Van der Vyver and LM du Plessis, have followed this approach. The South African legislature also attempted to define the terms “science” and “research”, mainly for funding purposes. These definitions are considered and the conclusion is that they do not provide the clear-cut answers one would expect. It will be argued that the nature of activities will determine whether an endeavour is scientific or not. The conclusion is that an alignment of the demarcation criterion developed by Strauss and others and the statutory definitions can provide a workable demarcation criterion. This “test” is then applied to activities of law students, academics, practitioners and judicial officers to determine when they will be practicing “science”. / MPhil, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

The question this contribution sets out to address is whether law can be regarded as a science. This notion is readily accepted by many, yet it is submitted that a proper theoretical justification for such an assumption is usually missing. The traditional primary sources of law, South African case law and legislation, distinguish between legal practice and legal science, but the basis of the distinction is not clear. However, an entire body of literature in the philosophy of science has developed around the question of when a discipline will amount to science. Various demarcation criteria proposed in philosophy of science are considered. These include that science uses the scientific method, is susceptible to falsification, is puzzle-solving within a paradigm or renders beneficial results. None of these criteria offer a satisfactory solution to the problem. The proposition by a group of philosophers including Herman Dooyeweerd, Marinus Stafleu and DFM Strauss, that the answer to the demarcation question is to be found in modal abstraction, is then considered. Modal abstraction amounts to a consideration of reality (persons, things, theories and rules) from one or more defined point(s) of entry. It is an artificial and learnt manner of thinking as it approaches reality from the perspective of one of the modalities of being. For example, juridical abstraction would mean that a cow is considered as the object of someone‟s proprietary rights. An abstract idea of the cow‟s characteristics, from a juridical point of view, is formed and the rules of property law are applied. A number of South African legal philosophers, amongst others Van Zyl, Van der Vyver and LM du Plessis, have followed this approach. The South African legislature also attempted to define the terms “science” and “research”, mainly for funding purposes. These definitions are considered and the conclusion is that they do not provide the clear-cut answers one would expect. It will be argued that the nature of activities will determine whether an endeavour is scientific or not. The conclusion is that an alignment of the demarcation criterion developed by Strauss and others and the statutory definitions can provide a workable demarcation criterion. This “test” is then applied to activities of law students, academics, practitioners and judicial officers to determine when they will be practicing “science”. / MPhil, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

A public organization has a section for customer service which is responsible of order entry from customers concerning errands within real estate and business equipment, cleaning, transport operations and handicap appliance. According to the co-ordinators in hospitals within the organisation the customers are requesting for staff to talk to physically, meaning a person to speak with face to face. The customers experiencing that it’s sometimes difficult to call customer service or use the web form, which is the only communication paths in the current situation. Proposed changes presented claim that a complement to customer service with local service centers in every hospital. The purpose of this study is to evaluate a change proposition by weigh between efficiency and working environment, this by using multi-criteria analysis. To achieve the goal a decision model is designed in the decision tool DecideIT. The aim of the study is to recommend decision makers to choose one of the options based on as rational grounds as possible. The result of the study showed that the preferred alternative is not to supplement customer service with local service centers. For the most part, the result depending on the survey (represented result from working environment criteria) which showed that the majority of customers do not request a person to speak with face to face at all. / Inom en offentlig verksamhet finns en kundtjänst vilken hanterar orderläggning åt personal inom verksamheten av felanmälan och beställningar för fastighet- och verksamhetsutrustning, Städ- och transportverksamheter samt hjälpmedel. Enligt samordnare på sjukhus inom offentlig verksamhet efterfrågar personal möjlighet att prata med en fysisk person ansikte mot ansikte, då de anser att det ibland är svårt att ringa eller använda webformulär vilka är de ända kontaktvägarna i dagsläget. Utifrån detta har ett förändringsförslag presenterats gällande att komplettera kundtjänst med lokala servicecenter på varje sjukhus. Studiens syfte har varigt att med multikriterieanalys avväga mellan effektivitet och arbetsmiljö vid ett kompletteringsförslag av kundtjänst. För att uppnå syftet med studien har en beslutsmodell konstruerats i beslutsverktyget DecideIT. Målet med studien har varigt att rekommendera beslutsfattare inom verksamheten att komplettera kundtjänst eller inte utifrån så rationella grunder som möjligt. Resultatet visade att det föredragna alternativet är att inte komplettera kundtjänst med lokala servicecenter. Till största del är resultatet beroende på enkätundersökningen (representerar kriteriet arbetsmiljö) vilken visade på att större delen av kunderna till kundtjänst inte efterfrågar en fysisk person att prata med ansikte mot ansikte över huvud taget.

Digital material has different preservation requirements than non-digital and is at greater risk of loss unless deliberate preservation activities are undertaken. Digital preservation is an on-going managed process designed to enable continued use of digital material for as long as necessary. Much of the digital preservation research to date has focused on understanding technical steps in preserving digital objects and there has been less attention paid to assumptions about selection and the conceptual underpinnings of practice. Selection is done, not conceptualised. Therefore the aim of this research was to investigate the theory and practice of selection for digital preservation in UK memory institutions. The objectives employed to achieve this aim were firstly to examine the underlying theory relating to selection in libraries, archives and museums of non-digital material. The research then went on to investigate who the stakeholders are in selection, how selection of digital material is performed and identifying the key influential factors in selection. An intensive, qualitative approach was used to complete these objectives. A thorough review of the literature provided a theoretical background to selection in libraries, archives and museums. Then preliminary data were gathered through a set of exploratory interviews with eight digital preservation experts in order to provide an overview of selection for digital preservation. The findings from these interviews then formed the basis for the second set of interviews with twenty five practitioners working in libraries, archives and museums. The views of practitioners were under-explored in the literature although it is they that perform selection. In addition to these interviews, twenty two current digital preservation policies were examined. This research has found that there is on the whole little change required for selecting digital material, in comparison to selecting non-digital material, although technical criteria relating to the ability of the institution to manage and preserve the material are of high importance. There is a clear assumption in institutions of selection leading only to permanent collecting, which should be questioned. This research has uncovered drivers to selection, including external funders, and barriers, which include a lack of confidence and knowledge on the part of practitioners in how to select and manage digital material. Concepts identified through this research provide a deeper understanding of selection for digital preservation in different contexts and encapsulate key factors underpinning selection. The concept of professionalism is a key factor; the need to be professional and ethical guide s practitioners through specific professional skills and knowledge. The practitioners become engaged with digital material and the level of engagement mirrors the way digital material is conceptualised by practitioners. Many stakeholders were identified, including managers, senior managers, users, creators and donors, funders, other organisations and IT staff. Relationships with stakeholders and the possible roles they play in selection were found to be key factors in selection. These findings contributed to the achievement of the final objective, which was to develop a conceptual model of key factors underpinning selection for of digital material for preservation. The conceptual model consists of five main concepts and their relationships: professionalism; relationships; organisational capabilities; material properties; and boundaries. There is a clear need for greater availability and access to training and networking opportunities for practitioners in order to increase engagement with digital material. Through this research, factors relating to selection have been identified and conceptualised. It has uncovered issues not previously addressed, in particular relating to the social aspect of selection. This research provides an understanding of the complexities of selection and the influences upon it.

Programs for Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) are often written in graphical or textual languages. Control engineers design and use them in systems where safety is vital, such as avionics, nuclear power plants or transportation systems. Malfunction of such a computer could have severe consequences, therefore thorough testing of PLCs are important. The Base Choice (BC) combination strategy was proposed as a suitable technique for testing software. Test cases are created based on BC strategy by varying the values of one parameter at a time while keeping the values of the other parameters fixed on the values in the base choice. However, this strategy might not be as effective when used on embedded software where parameters need to be set for a certain amount of time in order to trigger a certain interesting behavior. By incorporating time as another parameter when generating the tests, the goal is to create a better strategy that will increase not only code coverage but also fault detection compared to base choice strategy. Timed Base Choice (TBC) coverage criteria is an improvement upon the regular Base Choice criteria with the inclusion of time. We define TBC as follows: The base test case in timed base choice criteria is determined by the tester of the program. A criterion suggested by Ammann and Offutt is the “most likely value” from the point of view of the user. In addition, a time choice T is determined by the tester as the most likely time for keeping the base test case to the same values. From the base test case, new test cases are created by varying the interesting values of one parameter at a time, keeping the values of the other parameters fixed on the base test case. Each new test case is executed with the input values set for a certain amount of time determined by the time choice T. The time choice is given in time units. The research questions stated in this thesis are as follows: Research Question 1 (RQ1) How does Timed Base Choice tests compare to Base Choice tests in terms of decision coverage? Research Question 2 (RQ2) How does Timed Base Choice tests compare to Base Choice tests in terms of fault detection? In order to answer these questions, an empirical study was made in which 11 programs was tested along with respective test cases generated by BC and TBC. Each program was executed on a PLC along with the belonging test cases and several faulty programs (mutants). From this testing we got the corresponding decision coverage for each program achieved by BC and TBC respectively as well as a mutation score measuring how many of the mutated programs was detected and killed. We found that TBC outperformed BC testing both in terms of decision coverage and fault detection. Using TBC testing we managed to achieve full decision coverage on several programs that we were unable to achieve using regular BC. This shows that TBC is an improvement upon the regular BC in both ways, thus answering our previously stated research questions.