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Abstract Democracyrequires allmembers of the public to be afforded equal opportunities. South Africa is still a young democracy grappling to redress the imbalances of the past, which were not only about colour but also about gender and many other inequities. Prior to 1994, the South African public service systematically marginalised women across the colour spectrum. The introduction of the enabling legislation on affirmative action after1994 meant that women were classified as a category of the previously disadvantaged. Government departments have since then been expected to complywiththis legislation and advancewomenwho have the rightqualifications and experience tomanagerialpositions fromwhichtheywere previously excluded.The first part of this article examines the legislative framework and progress that has beenmade in the appointment of women to managerial positions in the South African public service. Statistics are used to quantify the progress that has beenmade.The second part of the article analyses obstacles that hamper the advancement of women.Lastly the article focuses on possible ways of addressing obstacles to the advancementofwomen.

The present thesis describes an experimental and theoretical investigation of the flow field and scour action of an offset jet. The hydraulic characteristics of the offset jet and the resulting scour developed in the bed were investigated in the laboratory. Tests were carried out using a fixed bed and a single offset ratio (height of jet above bed / jet thickness). Three flow rates were used. Velocity measurements in two directions, especially in the recirculating zone, were of help in understanding the flow field and in providing the necessary data for comparison with the theoretical results. The development of scour, on a uniform sand, was monitored at set time intervals, in most cases until the asymptotic state was reached. A new effective and simple method for measuring the scour profile, while the experiment was running, was devised. The experiments were conducted using four different offset ratios and several flow-rates. Results showed dependency of the scour characteristics on Froude number, time and especially the offset ratio. The findings of each experiment were combined dimensionlessly to produce relationships which describe the development of scour characteristics for the tested range of parameters. Scour profiles were found to be similar for a given offset ratio, but differed from one offset ratio to another. The second part of the work was concerned with developing a general integral method capable of the prediction of velocity fields of different flow situations, including those of offset jet impinging on rigidand eroded beds. The combination of strip integral method in a curvilinear system with the k-E and algebraic stress turbulence models provided such a method. Application of this method to a variety of selected test cases revealed the ability of the model to capture the main features of the flow within the considered range of interest. The algebraic stress model was found to give better results in curved and wall effected flows.

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When you want to pick up an object, it is usually a simple matter to reach out to its location, and accurately pick it up. Almost every action in such a sequence is guided and checked by vision, with eye movements usually preceding motor actions (Hayhoe & Ballard, 2005; Hayhoe, Shrivastava, Mruczek, & Pelz, 2003). However, most research in this area has been concerned about the sequence of movements in complex “everyday” tasks like making tea or tool use. Less emphasis has been placed on the object itself and where on it the eye and hand movements land, and how gaze behaviour is different when generating a perceptual response to that same object. For those studies that have, very basic geometric shapes have been used such as rectangles, crosses and triangles. In everyday life, however, there are a range of problems that must be computed that go beyond such simple objects. Objects typically have complex contours, different textures or surface properties, and variations in their centre of mass. Accordingly, the primary goals in conducting this research were three fold: (1) To provide a deeper understanding of the function of gaze in perception and action when interacting with simple and complex objects (Experiments 1a, 1b, 1c); (2) To examine how gaze and grasp behaviours are influenced when you dissociate important features of an object such as the COM and the horizontal centre of the block (Experiments 2a, 2c); and (3) To explore whether perceptual biases will influence grasp and gaze behaviours (Experiment 2b). The results from the current series of studies showed the influence of action (i.e., the potential to act) on perception in terms of where we look on an object, and vice versa, the influence of perceptual biases on action output (i.e. grasp locations). In addition, grasp locations were found to be less sensitive to COM changes than previously suggested (for example see Kleinholdermann, Brenner, Franz, & Smeets, 2007), whereas fixation locations were drawn towards the ‘visual’ COM of objects, as shown in other perceptual studies (for example see He & Kowler, 1991; Kowler & Blaser, 1995; McGowan, Kowler, Sharma, & Chubb, 1998; Melcher & Kowler, 1999; Vishwanath & Kowler, 2003, 2004; Vishwanath, Kowler, & Feldman, 2000), even when a motor response was required. The implications of these results in terms of vision for Perception and vision for Action are discussed.

Since the introduction of the Employment Equity Act in 1986, organizations in Canada's federal jurisdiction have been required to adopt Employment Equity Programs (EEPs) designed to increase the presence of four traditionally under-represented groups: women, aboriginal peoples, disabled persons, and visible minorities. This dissertation reports the results of a study that identifies the type of EEPs organizations subject to the Act have adopted, examines the impact that EEPs have had on hiring and promotion, and identifies what makes an EEP effective. Results suggest that organizations that adopt EEPs that are more formalized, more comprehensive, and better supported are more likely to hire and promote a representative number of designated group members (especially non-minority women and members of visible minorities). Implications for practitioners and policy makers are discussed.

In this study I explored the research questions, how do students understand membership in a community and the responsibilities of our various locations and what pedagogical rationales and practices move students from awareness of social injustice towards acting to transform the societal structures that reinforce injustice? This project engaged in a critical and classroom action research using ethnographic tools with a class of Grade 7 students from a Vancouver elementary school. The purpose was to create spaces in curriculum for student initiated social justice oriented actions while testing a pedagogy founded in student inquiry, criticality and praxis. This was an experiment in applying critical discourse to instructional design. While teaching about social justice issues, the teacher- researcher sought to employ the principles of social justice in the pedagogy as well as the methodology of this study. The methodology sought to be consistent with the principles of social justice through attempting to create a collaborative critical research cohort with students through using data collection to foster a dialogic relationship between teacher- researcher and students. The data collection was in the forms of teacher and student generated fieldnotes, a communal research log, photography, questionnaires, interviews and written reflections. The findings from this research were analyzed through the themes of teacher tensions, constructs of student and teachers, and resistance. The analysis of the data provided opportunities for identifying power dynamics within the concepts being critiqued, exploring the makings of the cognitive unconscious and entering into a dialogic relationship with students about official and hidden curricula. Conclusions drawn from this research included that the experiment of teaching and researching for social justice in a socially just manner requires not only a grounding in theory and an awareness of the normative discourse, but an investigation of and critical reflection on those social constructions of teacher and student that are deeply embedded in the collective cognitive unconscious of the classroom. Teacher tensions and student resistance are productive as they provoke awareness of these constructions and their effects on the classroom.

A size-weight illusion (SWI) occurs when a large object and small object of equal mass but different volume are lifted and the small object is perceived as heavier than the large object. All previous studies of the SWI used similar coloured objects and found that individuals initially use more force to lift the large object, compared to the small object but then use similar forces for the two objects on subsequent lifts. In contrast to the change in lifting forces over trials, the perceptual illusion stays consistent across all trials. The goal of the current study was to determine if introducing different colours for the SWI stimuli could alter participants’ expectations about the masses of the two objects and therefore modify the perceptual SWI. Participants lifted SWI stimuli that were either identical in colour or stimuli of different colour.

This work is dedicated to the development of a unified account of both theoretical and practical rationality. I adopt a particular view of evaluative properties, according to which entities are evaluated as good or bad according to how well they fulfill the constitutive functions of their kinds. I argue that the function of belief is to accurately represent reality, while the function of action is to satisfy the agent’s desires. These functions fix the goodness- or success-conditions of belief and action. With these functions in place, I adopt a reliabilist conception of reasoning which evaluates reasoning processes by how well they allow us to achieve the constitutive aims of belief and action. Moreover, I argue that the process of determining which action will best satisfy our desires is a cognitive matter – non-cognitive states like desire do not actually provide the agent with reasons.