Thesis (MDEV. (Planning and Management)) -- University of Limpopo, 2019 / Development projects have been widely implemented in South Africa and the rest of the world in order to promote social and economic development. While many projects generate some income for beneficiaries, when they are assessed within the broader context of the meaning of development, it is not so clear if, in fact, they have made such impact. In its efforts to reduce poverty and unemployment and to grow the local economy, Lepelle-Nkumpi Municipality has implemented many community development projects. While the municipality has used its Integrated Development Plans (IDPs) to support such projects, the impact on the livelihoods of beneficiaries does not appear to be as pronounced. The aim of this study was therefore to assess more systematic and greater depth, the impact of community development projects in sustaining the livelihoods of communities in Lepelle-Nkumpi Local Municipality in Limpopo Province. The study was based on mixed methods research design where a small sample of nine beneficiaries from five different types of projects (crop farming, poultry farming, early childhood development (ECD) and tourism), and two municipal officials or other stakeholders were interviewed. Interviews were used to collect primary data from the respondents, and secondary data was collected from sources such as IDP reports, journals and articles. The Sustainable Livelihoods Framework was adopted as the theoretical lens for the analysis of selected projects. The findings from the study indicate that although beneficiaries of projects that were studied benefited in terms of income and employment, project interventions had a limited impact because they did not lead to any significant acquisition of assets by beneficiaries. The income was also deemed to be insufficient for the needs of the participants. Furthermore, there was no evidence that the beneficiaries were empowered by the projects. Key words: Livelihoods; projects, development, sustainability, capability.

The technological evolution of the past century has exceeded all expectations and would have been impossible to predict 100 years ago. The same might be true of trying to predict the outcome of today’s technological developments that are still in their early stages. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a popular subject for predictions; experts are both pessimistic and optimistic about the outcome of AI development. There is a possibility that AI in the course of things becomes fully integrated into our everyday lives and ends up being a fundamental part of human civilization. This thesis examines a set of problems that arise in certain possible future AI scenarios. If an AI reaches superintelligence, it is reasonable to suggest that potentially it would have the possibility to improve our society in many ways.  This essay considers what impact a particular range of kinds of AI intervention would have on human well-being. There is no philosophical consensus on the right account of well-being, and that limits the scope and force of this study. In that sense, it should be seen as a point of departure for future research on how different accounts of well-being cash out in the AI scenarios under consideration. The approach taken here is mainly to focus on what happens in the AI scenario with theories of well-being that have achievement as a basic and fundamental component. The central discussion in sections 3-4 concerns that. I give a cursory overview of other influential accounts of well-being in section 2, in order to explain why achievement-including views are taken seriously.

Problem Statement: South Africa is currently facing a challenge of youth unemployment. The hardest hit are those from low income communities, as they in addition have limited access to information. The Internet has proven to be one of the ways in which recruitment is done and failure to access reduces the opportunities. The purpose of the research: The main objective of this study was to understand how the youth living in the townships use the Internet to seek for employment. The purpose of this study is to assess how the Internet use affect the youth when searching for employment. Design/methodology/ approach: An interpretivist approach was employed to understand how the youth seek employment. This study used a qualitative approach to collect the data. Interviews were done using semi-structured questions. Alampay (2006) Capability Approach (CA) was used as a guide to conceptualise how the youth from low-income communities use the Internet to find employment. Borrowing from the four main constructs (conversion factors, freedom, capabilities and functionings) employed by Alampay (2006) in his model, this study operationalised the Alampay (2006) CA model by adding the ICT commodities as the fifth construct. The CA was chosen as an appropriate framework for this study because the framework focuses on what humans are able to do and achieve when presented with the available ICT resources. Findings: The findings demonstrate that the lack of resources, income, information and digital skills affected the individual capabilities to effectively use the Internet when seeking employment. The success rate in finding a job using the Internet was low among job seekers. Commodities, individual differences, social and environmental factors affected how the youth (18-34 years) from low-income communities use the Internet to find employment. In addition, crime, poor network coverage, expensive data bundles and limited access to ICT resources were among the key factors that contributed to limited use of the Internet among job seekers. Research Contribution: This study seeks to close the gap in limited knowledge available in developing countries with regards to the use of the Internet among job seekers. Therefore, based on the study findings, this thesis has contributed towards adding value to the body of knowledge within the field of Information Systems. In addition, the findings can contribute towards assisting policy makers in solving challenges faced by the unemployment youth in developing countries when using technology to find employment.

An increased awareness on competitive priorities and capabilities has been seen among firms. The main focus of this research are the operations capabilities which are connected to the competitive priorities in a company. The purpose of this research is to investigate critical operations priorities and capabilities with the following two research questions:   RQ1: Which critical operations priorities can be identified in the literature? RQ2: Which critical operations capabilities can be identified in the literature?   The competitive priorities represent the company's future emphasis on the manufacturing, indicate the strategic position that is desired in the marketplace and support the corporate strategy. Operations capabilities can be defined as company-specific sets of skills, processes and routines which are developed within the operations strategy management. By conducting a systematic literature review seven priorities and 17 capabilities were identified in total.  The developed taxonomy will help companies identify and develop their company-specific operations priorities and capabilities. It can also be used as a framework for other researchers within this area.

Agile methods provide an organization or a team with the flexibility to adopt a selected subset of principles and practices based on their culture, their values, and the types of systems that they develop. More specifically, every organization or team implements a customized agile method, tailored to better accommodate its needs. However, the extent to which a customized method supports the organizational objectives, i.e. the 'goodness' of that method, should be demonstrable. Existing agile assessment approaches focus on comparative analyses, or are limited in scope and application. In this research, we propose a systematic, comprehensive approach to assessing the 'goodness' of agile methods. We examine an agile method based on (1) its adequacy, (2) the capability of the organization to support the adopted principles and strategies specified by the method, and (3) the method's effectiveness. We propose the Objectives, Principles and Strategies (OPS) Framework to guide our assessment process. The Framework identifies (a) objectives of the agile philosophy, (b) principles that support the objectives and (c) strategies that implement the principles. It also defines (d) linkages that relate objectives to principles, and principles to strategies, and finally, (e) indicators for assessing the extent to which an organization supports the implementation and effectiveness of those strategies. The propagation of indicator values along the linkages provides a multi-level assessment view of the agile method.  In this dissertation, we present our assessment methodology, guiding Framework, validation approach, results and findings, and future directions. / Ph. D.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recalls of medical devices are at historically high levels despite efforts by manufacturers to meet stringent agency requirements to ensure quality and patient safety. A factor in the release of potentially dangerous devices might be the interpretations of nonnormal test data by statistically unsophisticated engineers. The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that testing by lot provides a better indicator of true process behavior than process capability indices (PCIs) calculated from the mixed lots that often occur in a typical production situation. The foundations of this research were in the prior work of Bertalanffy, Kane, Shewhart, and Taylor. The research questions examined whether lot traceability allows the decomposition of the combination distribution to allow more accurate calculations of PCIs used to monitor medical device production. The study was semiexperimental, using simulated data. While the simulated data were random, the study was a quasiexperimental design because of the control of the simulated data through parameter selection. The results of this study indicate that decomposition does not increase the accuracy of the PCI. The conclusion is that a systems approach using the PCI, additional statistical tools, and expert knowledge could yield more accurate results than could decomposition alone. More accurate results could ensure the production of safer medical devices by correctly identifying noncapable processes (i.e., processes that may not produce required results), while also preventing needless waste of resources and delays in potentially life-savings technology, reaching patients in cases where processes evaluate as noncapable when they are actually capable.

Dissertation presented for a Masters Degree in Development Studies in the Faculty of Humanities and School of Social Sciences, at the University of the Witwatersrand. 17 September 2014 / The manufacturing sector contributed to growth in the 20th century, which ultimately enhanced capabilities related to machinery and plants. However, towards the end of the 20th century, the manufacturing sector became less prominent as a catalyst for growth as the economy became increasingly bit-driven. A bit-driven or knowledge economy characterises the 21st century, where economic growth is created through the expansion of ideas and the enhancement of human capabilities (Evans, 2007). In order to analyse the requirements of economic growth in the 21st century, I relied on the New Growth theory and the capability approach of Amartya Sen. The capability approach reviews state policies in terms of its impact on developing its citizens’ capabilities, for instance, the ability to choose amongst Information and Communications Technology (ICT) courses at universities (Sen, 1990: 49). South Africa has several policies in place which acknowledge the importance of a knowledge-based economy. It has also referred to the efforts of the African National Congress (ANC) to build a Developmental State (DS). This research examined several policies aimed at creating a 21st century DS and asks whether they enhance the capabilities of citizens to partake in the knowledge economy. This paper looked at development during the industrialisation period (specifically after World War II). Here, economic growth was propelled through manufacturing. I drew on specific countries’ experiences such as Japan, Korea and Taiwan, which were 20th century DSs. However, as the 21st century approached, the industrial revolution was replaced with a knowledge-based economy (KBE). The 20th and 21st century DSs are linked in that the manufacturing sector in the latter DS needs the services sector as a catalyst for job creation and economic growth. Therefore the manufacturing industry needs to diversify to include the services sector (Zalk, 2014).

This graduation thesis is concerned with implementing the SPC (Statistical process control) to the process plan. The aim of this thesis is an analysis of present status of manufacture laths bending and a selection of useful methods, which is possible to apply in a company processes. The main reason for SPC implementation is continual improvement of quality in manufacturing concern. The theoretical part of thesis consist of bending description, control of process quality, quality control instruments and errors in measurement. In practical part is described an actual status of manufacture and a solution of query.

The inability of a large proportion of the working class to sustain a decent quality of life has placed increased importance on paying employees a living wage, that is, an income amount that enables meaningful participation in society above mere survival. However, while this notion seems promising, it does not account for the complexities in the relationship between income and quality of life; which, of course, is influenced by several moderating factors. This study considered two of these, financial capability and decent work, thereby assuming that the ability of income to effectively lead to a good quality of life is influenced by whether or not individuals engage in financial capability behaviours or perceive their work as decent. A cross sectional descriptive design was used and a final sample of N = 153 general salaried employees in South Africa participated in a self-report survey. Exploratory factor analysis revealed that each of the four financial capabilities (making ends meet, keeping track, planning ahead, and staying informed behaviours) were unidimensional in nature; while decent work produced a three-factor structure, inconsistent with its original five-factor conceptualisation. Spearman rho correlation results revealed that income was positively related to quality of life, and moderation analysis revealed that planning ahead was the only financial capability that influenced the relationship between income and quality of life. All other financial capabilities as well as decent work produced non-significant findings. Considering these results, study limitations and recommendations for future research are discussed, followed by outlining theoretical and practical implications.

This study focused on the structuralanalysis of BIM models. Different commercial software (Autodesk products and Rhinoceros)are presented through modelling and analysis of different structures with varying complexity,section properties, geometry, and material. Beside the commercial software, differentarchitectural and different tools for structural analysis are evaluated (dynamo, grasshopper,add-on tool, direct link, indirect link via IFC). / BIM and Structural BIM (S-BIM)