Simulation is a complex task with many research applications - chiey as a research tool, to test and evaluate hypothetical scenarios. Though many simulations execute similar operations and utilise similar data, there are few simulation frameworks or toolkits that allow researchers to rapidly develop their concepts. Those that are available to researchers are limited in scope, or use old technology that is no longer useful to modern researchers. As a result of this, many researchers build their own simulations without a framework, wasting time and resources on a system that could already cater for the majority of their simulation's requirements. In this work, a system is proposed for the creation of a scalable, dynamic-resolution network simulation framework that provides scalable scope for researchers, using modern technologies and languages. This framework should allow researchers to rapidly develop a broad range of semantically-rich simulations, without the necessity of superor grid-computers or clusters. Design and implementation are discussed and alternative network simulations are compared to the proposed framework. A series of simulations, focusing on malware, is run on an implementation of this framework, and the results are compared to expectations for the outcomes of those simulations. In conclusion, a critical review of the simulator is made, considering any extensions or shortcomings that need to be addressed.

This thesis provides an overview over the existing and emerging correlation of the Internet and Human Rights with the main focus on the human right to freedom of expression. It looks at how freedom of expression is protected and curtailed at the same time by regulation in the global context and nationally and how it could be protected in the future. Firstly, it will address general issues and problems connected with the Internet and Human Rights, like equal access to the new technology, and terrorism and the defence of freedom. It will look at the relationship of freedom of expression and other human rights, especially the right to privacy. Secondly, it will examine the applicability of international human rights agreements and the opportunities offered by them. It will also look at the possibility of drafting a new piece of international legislation and the effectiveness of national regulation. Although in some areas international consensus may be easier to achieve, for example in many aspects of criminal law enforcement, it is unrealistic to expect that countries with different cultural values will agree upon a single set of rules for the whole world. International harmonisation strategies are clearly an important response to the jurisdictional difficulties of Internet regulation, but they can't be the ultimate and single solution. But national regulation faces its problems, too. Due to the character of the Internet as a transnational medium and its borderless flow of information the nation state only has limited possibilities to effectively regulate the Internet within its borders and it has to accept a loss of sovereignty in cyberspace. Although regulation in some areas may be effective, complete control is impossible which will be shown. Thirdly, it will consider the different approaches that are available to regulate and control content on the Internet, their effectiveness and their influence on the human right to freedom of expression. It will illustrate in various examples in form of case studies the difficulties of Internet regulation. It will also provide an overview over selfrating schemes and filtering and blocking software and the problems connected with them. The liability of Internet Service Providers will be examined and alternatives to government control of the Internet will be discussed. / Law, Peter A. Allard School of / Graduate

D.Litt. et Phil. / This study aims at constructing a developmental model which can serve as a guide for the design and development of Web-based psychological interventions. It should be kept in mind that this study is grounded methodologically in a developmental research design but also uses this developmental research design as a basis for intervention design. Psychology has already made use of the Internet in terms of different applications but no formalised structure exists for the development of Web-based interventions. Due to this gap in knowledge the model needs to be developed by utilising existing models for intervention design and integrating them with existing models for the design of instructional and Web-based training. Due to the unique, adaptive nature of Web-based psychological interventions, it is necessary to also move beyond these models and focus on user and environmental characteristics which can be addressed during the development and design phases. In order to develop and refine the proposed model, a Web-based career guidance intervention will be developed and implemented. Users‟ feedback from their experience of this intervention will provide indications of the feasibility of the model and also suggest any modifications that should be made.

Magister Scientiae - MSc / Most rural areas of developing countries are faced with problems like shortage of doctors in hospitals, illiteracy and poor power supply. Because of these issues, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is often sees as a useful solution for these areas. Unfortunately, the social environment is often ignored. This leads to inappropriate systems being developed for these areas. The aims of this thesis were firstly, to learn how a communication system can be built for a rural telehealth environment in a developing country, secondly to learn how users can be supported to use such a system. / South Africa

FWOS (Food Wholesaler Ordering System) demonstrates the application of web services to provide an ecommerce solution for general food wholesaler and their customers. The main goal of this project is to provide graphical user interfaces for the four user types including visitor, member, sales person and sales manager. The system provides a contact base ordering system, an account management sub-system, and a powerful accounting subsystem.

A research report submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Mathematical Statistics, School of Statistics and Actuarial Science to the Faculty of Science University of Witwatersrand, 2019 / In this work, an investigation into the problem of optimising the operations of a call center is done. The call arrival process is explored and found to be a non-homogeneous Poisson process with arrival rate that is a piece-wise constant function. The call service times are found to possibly be lognormally distributed. The use of well-known queuing models such as the Erlang A, B and C in modeling a call center’s operations with the ultimate goal of determining optimal number of agents needed to obtain an agreed upon targeted service level (SL) threshold is discussed. The target SL involves answering between 85% - 90% of all incoming calls within 15 /30 seconds as per industry norms. / TL (2020)

Thesis (MPhil)--University of Stellenbosch, 2001. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The publication of the Report of the National Commission on Higher Education (NCHE) in 1996, the White Paper on Higher Education (1997) and the Size and Shape Report (2000) has profoundly changed the landscape of Higher Education in South Africa. Institutions of Higher Education have to re-think, among others, their teaching and learning strategies including the integration and use of technology. Although the use of technology in higher education is still in the early stages, the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) is growing rapidly. The University of Stellenbosch started to integrate the Internet in their teaching in 1998. Research was undertaken to find a suitable on-line course management system and Web Course Tools (WebCT) was chosen for this purpose. Since it was implemented, the use of WebCT has grown exponentially, although in most cases only as an add-on to classroom lectures. The World Health Organisation (WHO) Mental Health Disorders in Primary Care programme was the first programme developed as a full distance education course, delivered completely by means of WebCT and making use of the team approach to programme development. This programme was therefore chosen as the case study for this research. The purpose of this study is to apply 24 internationally developed benchmarks for quality on-line distance education to the WebCT component of the WHO programme in order to determine the applicability of these benchmarks for World Wide Web (WWW) programmes at the University of Stellenbosch. The research strategy for this study is a qualitative case study. Qualitative data was obtained by conducting semi-structured interviews with the individuals involved in the design, development and implementation of the WHO course. The study concludes that the 24 benchmarks cannot be applied to the current University of Stellenbosch context. The systems at the US will either have to be adapted, or established to meet the requirements of the international benchmarks. Another option for the US could be to develop their own benchmarks, taking international guidelines into account. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die publikasie van die Nasionale Kommissie vir Hoër Onderwys se verslag in 1996, die Witskrif vir Hoër Onderwys 1997 en die onlangse "Size and Shape" Verslag, het die scenario vir Hoër Onderwys in Suid-Afrika onherroeplik verander. Hoër Onderwys instellings is besig om, onder andere, die strategieë wat leer en onderrig bevorder, in heroorweging te neem en dit sluit die integrasie of gebruik van tegnologie as een van die belangrikste punte in. Alhoewel die gebruik van tegnologie in Suid-Afrika nog in 'n beginstadium is, groei die gebruik hiervan ongekend. Die Universiteit van Stellenbosch het sedert 1998 begin om die Internet in leer en onderrig te benut. Navorsing is gedoen oor 'n geskikte elektroniese kursusbestuurstelsel en die keuse het op "Web Course Tools (WebCT)" geval. Sedert die implementering hiervan het die gebruik eksponensiële groei beleef. In die meeste gevalle word WebCT bykomend tot klaskameronderrig gebruik. Die "World Health Organisation (WHO) Mental Health Disorders in Primary Care" programme was een van die eerste, volledige afstandsonderwysprogramme wat van die spanbenadering tot programontwikkeling gebruik gemaak het. Die program is daarom ook as gevallestudie vir hierdie navorsing gekies. Die doel van hierdie navorsing is om 24 internasionale kriteria vir kwaliteit Internet afstandsonderrig, toe te pas op die WebCT komponent van die bogenoemde WHO kursus, ten einde te bepaal of die kriteria toepaslik is vir Internetkursusse binne die Universiteit van Stellenbosch konteks. Die navorsingstrategie wat aangewend is om die doel van hierdie navorsing te bereik, is 'n kwalitatiewe gevallestudie. Kwalitatiewe data is verkry deur semi-gestruktureerde onderhoude met die persone te voer wat betrokke was by die ontwerp, ontwikkeling en implementering van die WHO program. Die afleidings wat deur hierdie studie gemaak word, is dat die 24 kriteria nie toepaslik is vir die huidige Universiteit van Stellenbosch konteks nie. Die US sal dus die huidige sisteme moet verander of sisteme vestig ten einde aan internasionale standaarde te voldoen. 'n Ander opsie sou wees om 'n eie stel kriteria, gebaseer op die internasionale kriteria, te ontwikkel.

M. Tech. Business Information Systems / Information technology (IT) rapidity, and the pervasive implementation of new technologies in the education system, has tremendously improved the way teaching and learning is conducted. Institutions are being reshaped by the rapid provision of education services anytime, anywhere regardless of the constraint of space and geographical boundaries. This has enhanced collaboration among educators as well as their learners by sharing and disseminating of knowledge. However, this sharing of knowledge is still limited as educators have not fully exploited IT to share knowledge. The major objective of this study was to develop a framework for utilizing IT to enhance knowledge sharing for mathematics and science teachers.

This evaluation started with preliminary research into the situations and problems in science classrooms and computer laboratories. The preliminary research identified teacher-centred lessons, learner and teacher conceptualisations, large numbers of learners per classroom, assessment, and a lack of interest in biology as some of the major problems in South African classrooms. The current research (because it is continuing) uses two Educational Computer Programmes (ECPs); a Computer-Aided Assessment (CAA) programme which is designed to alleviate problems in assessment, and Zadarh (a constructivist adventure game) designed to solve problems in biology classrooms, to further investigate some of the identified problems and find out the learners' and teachers' views on the utility of these two ECPs. The use of these two ECPs had not previously been investigated appropriately, especially in disadvantaged communities where teachers had little knowledge of the use and of evaluating ECPs. Therefore, a major concern for this study is that previous ECP evaluations excluded teachers and were not comprehensive enough especially for deploying ECPs in disadvantaged communities. A review of the methods that had hitherto been used, indicated that quantitative, mostly, behavioural and cognitive, pre-test post-test methods were prominently used, despite the shift in instructional design to constructional design, which embrace qualitative aspects of learning. Also, instructional design has evolved from behavioural models to include constructivist microworlds, which were unfairly evaluated by excluding qualitative benefits. Thus, this study seeks a more comprehensive evaluation strategy, in which teachers play the role of co-evaluators and which captures the qualitative and quantitative changes that software programs impart upon teachers' classroom practices, with sensitivity to the multiple disciplines in a program, as well as to the value systems of teachers. Comprehensive evaluation processes were facilitated during which 26 teachers in 23 schools in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu Natal and Mpumalanga Provinces embarked upon the evaluation of the two ECPs. Evaluations were based upon a developmental, constructivist and interpretative approaches, by which teachers took ownership of these evaluations. Comprehensive evaluations revealed benefits from CAA and Zadarh, as well as benefits from direct teacher participations in the evaluations. CAA (Question Mark in this case) instantly provided diagnostic data. However, it was evident that the quality of diagnosis and remediation depended upon the quality of the test items, and the learning as well as the teaching strategies. Factors that could militate against the use and full utilisation of CAA in the schools where the study was done included the cost of software for CAA, teachers' capacity to set diagnostic test items particularly in a multiple-choice format, teachers' ability to interpret data produced by CAA, and teachers' skills in remedying their classroom problems as well as learners' problems. This study found that by playing Zadarh learners were able to construct knowledge through discovery and were attracted to the enjoyable aspects of this educational tool. Learners remembered most of those moments in the game during which they were both stuck and trying to solve problems on their way through Zadarh. Therefore, Zadarh can provide useful learning experiences with fun, and can improve motivation towards learning. Debilitating factors against the use of Zadarh and CAA include school curricula, which do not accommodate innovations, inflexible timetables, and classroom approaches that are teacher-centred. It was clear that the success of using computers in education would depend upon the ability of teachers to evaluate the ECPs, and to integrate ECPs into school curricula. drive these interactions played an important role in the successful integration of ECPs into classroom. One way of achieving such success is to include teachers as evaluators and co-designers of ECPs. Evaluations of ECPs therefore should: i) allow the teachers and learners, through social dialog, to identify how software could solve problems; ii) establish the compatibility of the software with the school curriculum; iii) ascertain the capacity of school computers to execute the software; and iv) provide support to the teachers in the use the software. Evaluations should benefit teachers and learners. The study concluded that a post-modern, developmental, and constructivist evaluation process might be one of the ways of enhancing training teachers in the use of the ECPs, in the concepts that the software deal with, and in evaluation. In that way, a socially contracted evaluation is comprehensive and can serve as a change agent through which teachers reflect and act upon improving their classroom practices. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2004.

This implementation study set out to establish the impact of a constructivist-informed, / Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2005.