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This study intended to explore the effectiveness of finance committees at schools. A qualitative design, using interviews with purposely selected participants made up of fifteen school principals and ten finance officers in the Sedibeng Districts of the Gauteng Department of Education was used for data collection. This was aimed at exploring how effective school finance committees are and to recommend ways of improving their effectiveness in executing their financial management function. The literature study exposed the conceptual framework and essence of the functional effectiveness of school finance committees, which laid the basis for the empirical study. The empirical study was based on the social constructivist paradigm with the phenomenological approach as the strategy of enquiry. Findings of the study indicate that school finance committees are generally structured in line with policy directives. It was also found that the performance and attitudes of office-bearers of finance committees affected the effectiveness of finance committees. Firstly and for various reasons, principals as ex-officio members generally played a dominant role in finance committees. Reasons include their perceived ‘high‘ level of knowledge regarding financial management and the lack of knowledge and skills of other finance committee members to execute their responsibilities. Secondly, finance committee effectiveness was found to be negatively affected by poor budgetary processes – from the planning process to the implementation and monitoring, which include weaknesses in financial administration and reporting as well as evaluation of the budget implementation process. As a result, the management of funds was often characterised by budget variances and the need for virement. Recommendations of the study address the need for intensive capacity-building for finance committee members in specific areas of their roles and functionality. This must be accompanied by constant monitoring by Departmental development and support officers responsible for school governance. In this regard, there must be a feedback and system that enables corrective action to be taken as soon as signs of poor performance emerge. Finally, it is recommended that the structure of the finance committee be reviewed, especially as it concerns office-bearers. In this regard, it is recommended that finance officers be charged with the responsibility of financial administration and not double up as secretaries of school governing bodies. / MEd (Education Management)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2015

This study intended to explore the effectiveness of finance committees at schools. A qualitative design, using interviews with purposely selected participants made up of fifteen school principals and ten finance officers in the Sedibeng Districts of the Gauteng Department of Education was used for data collection. This was aimed at exploring how effective school finance committees are and to recommend ways of improving their effectiveness in executing their financial management function. The literature study exposed the conceptual framework and essence of the functional effectiveness of school finance committees, which laid the basis for the empirical study. The empirical study was based on the social constructivist paradigm with the phenomenological approach as the strategy of enquiry. Findings of the study indicate that school finance committees are generally structured in line with policy directives. It was also found that the performance and attitudes of office-bearers of finance committees affected the effectiveness of finance committees. Firstly and for various reasons, principals as ex-officio members generally played a dominant role in finance committees. Reasons include their perceived ‘high‘ level of knowledge regarding financial management and the lack of knowledge and skills of other finance committee members to execute their responsibilities. Secondly, finance committee effectiveness was found to be negatively affected by poor budgetary processes – from the planning process to the implementation and monitoring, which include weaknesses in financial administration and reporting as well as evaluation of the budget implementation process. As a result, the management of funds was often characterised by budget variances and the need for virement. Recommendations of the study address the need for intensive capacity-building for finance committee members in specific areas of their roles and functionality. This must be accompanied by constant monitoring by Departmental development and support officers responsible for school governance. In this regard, there must be a feedback and system that enables corrective action to be taken as soon as signs of poor performance emerge. Finally, it is recommended that the structure of the finance committee be reviewed, especially as it concerns office-bearers. In this regard, it is recommended that finance officers be charged with the responsibility of financial administration and not double up as secretaries of school governing bodies. / MEd (Education Management)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2015

För att uppnå Sveriges miljömål begränsad klimatpåverkan behöver åtgärder göras för att minska energianvändningen inom bostads- och servicesektorn, vilken stod för drygt en tredjedel av Sveriges totala energianvändning år 2014. Dålig styrning av värme-, ventilations- och kylsystem är ofta en bidragande orsak till onödigt hög energianvändning inom hushåll och lokalbyggnader. Med hjälp av fastighetsautomation samlas byggnadens tekniska system i ett styr- och övervakningssystem, vilket kan användas för att optimera styrningen. Dock är marknaden för fastighetsautomation dåligt kartlagd och information saknas angående styrsystemens funktioner och användningsområden. Rapporten inleds med grundläggande teori för att skapa ökad förståelse för senare delar. Därefter har en undersökning gjorts för ett antal företags styrsystem i syfte att klargöra dess funktioner, användningsområden samt vilken energibesparing styrsystemen ger upphov till. I rapporten beskrivs också tillvägagångssättet för en verklig installation i lokalbyggnaden Kv Slottet 4 och hur energianvändning samt inneklimat har påverkats efter att styrsystemet installerats. Resultatet för den svenska marknadsöversikten visar på att fastighetsautomation är etablerat inom byggnadstyperna flerbostadshus och lokalbyggnader medan småhus är en outforskad marknad. Vanliga funktioner som implementeras i styrsystem är drifttidsstyrning, prognosstyrning och effektbegränsning. Undersökningen har visat att fastighetsautomation ger upphov till energibesparingar på i snitt 10 – 40 %. Besparingen varierar dock och beror på flera faktorer som byggnadstyp, geografisk placering och tidigare styrning. Företagen använder också olika metoder för att beräkna energibesparingen varför det är problematiskt att rättvist jämföra besparingen för olika styrsystem. Energibesparingen för de olika byggnadstyperna och installationssystemen har i många fall varit svåra att få tillgång till. Generellt gäller att de företag som tillhandahåller obligatoriskt driftavtal har bättre koll på den besparing som styrsystemet ger upphov till. I examensarbetet har fyra företag kartlagts men för en mer djupgående analys över den svenska marknaden bör fler företag undersökas. Efter installationen av det automatiska styrsystemet Ecopilot® på Kv Slottet 4 erhölls en värmeenergibesparing för vald period på upp till 20,6 MWh, vilket motsvarar en procentuell besparing på 53 %. Energibesparingen varierar dock till viss del beroende på vilken beräkningsmetod som används. Byggnadens totala elbesparing uppgick till 6,5 MWh, vilket motsvarar 20 % minskning av elanvändningen för undersökt period. Den beräknade energibesparingen kan inte helt tillskrivas Ecopilot® eftersom ett annat driftfall rådde under jämförd period än det som var precis innan installationen. Via styrsystemets gränssnitt kunde emellertid en sänkt energianvändning härledas till Ecopilot®. Bland annat tack vare effektivare reglering, samkörning av installationssystem, effektivare värmeåtervinning, sänkta ventilationsflöden samt lägre inomhus- och flödestemperaturer. Intervjuer med verksamma personer i byggnaden påvisar att ingen skillnad har märkts på inomhusklimatet före och efter installationen av Ecopilot®, varken med avseende på det termiska klimatet eller på luftkvaliten. För större säkerhet gällande styrsystemets inverkan på inomhusklimatet och energianvändningen bör en längre tidsperiod utvärderas. / Sweden has a number of environmental objectives, of which one is reduced climate impact. To achieve this goal measures have to be taken in order to reduce building energy use in residential and services sectors, sectors that accounted for over one third of Sweden’s total energy use in 2014. Poor regulation of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) is a common reason for often unnecessary high energy use in residential buildings and non-residential premises. Building automation integrates the buildings technical systems, such as HVAC, into one centralized system for monitoring and controlling, which then can be used to optimize the regulation for these systems. The market is however poorly mapped and information is missing regarding functions and area of use for these control systems. This report begins with a description of basic theory that is relevant for understanding parts later on. An analysis has then been made for a number of different building automation systems to clarify their functions, area of use, and potentials in energy savings. The report also describes the procedure for a real installation on Kv Slottet 4 and how the energy use and indoor climate has been affected after the building automation system has been installed. Results regarding the Swedish market overview shows that building automation is established in apartment buildings and non-residential premises while building automation is still unused in smaller houses. Some of the most common functions that are implemented in control systems are time clock operation, forecast control and power limitation. The analysis has shown that building automation can lead to energy savings between 10 to 40 %. The size of the saved energy depends on a number of factors like type of building, geographical location and former regulation of HVAC. The building automation companies are using different methods to calculate the energy saving why it is a problem to fairly compare different control systems. The information on energy savings for different type of buildings and technical systems are in many cases hard to get hold of. Generally speaking, the companies that provide mandatory agreements for operating the control system have more detailed information regarding energy savings. Four different companies were covered in this report. More companies should be mapped in order to make a more profound analysis. After the installation of Ecopilot® on Kv Slottet 4, a heat reduction of up to 20.6 MWh for the chosen period of time was achieved. That corresponds to a relative energy saving of 53 %. The energy saving varies depending on what method is used for calculation. The buildings total energy savings for electricity was 6.5 MWh, which corresponds to a 20 % reduction. The calculated energy saving is not all due to the building automation system but there has been some reduction. Ecopilot® has lowered the energy use by more efficient regulation, co-operating heating and cooling, more efficient heat recovery, lowered ventilation flows, and lowered temperatures. No change in indoor climate has been noticed by the people that were interviewed. The control system should be evaluated for a longer period of time to ensure how much it affects the indoor climate and the energy use in the building.

Diss. (sammanfattning) SLU : Sveriges lantbruksuniv., 2009. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

<div>To continue the shift from batch operations to continuous operations for a wider range of products, advances in real-time process management (RTPM) are necessary. The key requirements for effective RTPM are to have reliable real-time data of the critical process parameters (CPP) and critical quality attributes (CQA) of the materials being processed, and to have robust control strategies for the rejection of disturbances and setpoint tracking.</div><div><br></div><div>Real-time measurements are necessary for capturing process dynamics and implement feedback control approaches. The mass flow rate is an additional important CPP in continuous manufacturing compared to batch processing. The mass flow rate can be used to control the composition and content uniformity of drug products as well as an indicator of whether the process is in a state of control. This is the rationale for investigating real-time measurement of mass flow of particulate streams. Process analytical technology (PAT) tools are required to measure particulate flows of downstream unit operations, while loss-in-weight (LIW) feeders only provide initial upstream flow rates. A novel capacitance-based sensor, the ECVT sensor, has been investigated in this study and demonstrates the ability to effectively measure powder mass flow rates in the downstream equipment.</div><div><br></div><div>Robust control strategies can be utilized to respond to variations and disturbances in input material properties and process parameters, so CQAs of materials/products can be maintained and the amount of off-spec production can be reduced. The hierarchical control system (Level 0 equipment built-in control, Level 1 PAT based PID control and Level 2 optimization-based model predictive control) was applied in the pilot plant at Purdue University and it was demonstrated that the use of active process control allows more robust continuous process operation under different risk scenarios compared to a more rigid open-loop process operation within predefined design space. With the aid of mass flow sensing, the control framework becomes more robust in mitigating the effects of upstream disturbances on product qualities. For example, excursions in the mass flow from an upstream unit operation, which could force a shutdown of the tablet press and/or produce off-spec tablets, can be prevented by proper control and monitoring of the powder flow rate entering the tablet press hopper.</div><div><br></div><div>In this study, the impact of mass flow sensing on the control performance of a direct compaction line is investigated by using flowsheet modeling implemented in MATLAB/Simulink to examine the control performance under different risk scenarios and effects of data sampling (sampling time, measurement precision). Followed by the simulation work, pilot plant studies are reported in which the mass flow sensor is integrated into the tableting line at the exit of the feeding-and-blending system and system performance data is collected to verify the effects of mass flow sensing on the performance of the overall plant-wide supervisory control.</div>

This report describes the development and testing of the upgraded Control and Monitoring (C&amp;Mu) system for the TOFOR neutron spectrometer. TOFOR is currently performing plasma diagnostics for the JET experimental fusion reactor. The purpose of the C&amp;Mu system is to enable monitoring of the amplitude dependent time delays of TOFOR. In order to perform this monitoring function the C&amp;Mu system must comprise a pulsed light source with variable intensity and a reference time signal. In this work a reference time signal has been retrieved from a laser comprising a motorized polarizer. This has been accomplished by installing a photomultiplier tube and a beamsplitter cube. The beamsplitter cube splits the laser light into two parts and directs one part into the photomultiplier tube. The photomultiplier tube converts the light into an electrical reference time signal. A control program has been developed for the motorized polarizer, enabling the user to vary the intensity of the light over the interval from 0% to 100%. The C&amp;Mu system has been performance tested and it was found that the time resolution of the system is about 0.1ns and the time stability of the system is about 0.12ns over 27 hours. The system is more than adequate to monitor variations in time delays at TOFOR of several nanoseconds, over a full JET day. The C&amp;Mu system is ready to be installed on TOFOR.

This study focussed on the budget control and monitoring challenges for school governing bodies. The study engaged a qualitative in-depth research into the challenges school governing bodies experience regarding budget control and monitoring based on the fact that budget control and monitoring are dimensional tools of financial management aimed at ensuring proper financial management and accountability. The research, grounded on social constructivism and employing a phenomenological pragmatic approach for data collection was purposely and conveniently confined to town schools in the Ekurhuleni District. Data was collected using interviews with school principals, finance officers and a treasurer and Institutional Development and Support Officers. Findings from the data indicated that while there were areas where school governing bodies did well, they faced numerous challenges in budget control and monitoring. It was found that there were challenges regarding the budgeting process in so far as budget preparation, budget implementation, and budget control and monitoring. Miscellaneous challenges influencing the budget control and monitoring process found included poor financial reporting, the low level of parental literacy which seemed to influence the meaningfulness of and realistic nature of the budgeting processes and the generic, inadequate and poor training school governors were provided with. Recommendation from the study mainly concern the provision of customised, focussed and needs-based training in financial and budget management after determining the skills audit to determine training and capacity building needs of school governors, holding principal to account for financial management as ex officio members of governing bodies, reviewing the quintile classification of schools based on the poverty index and considering the backgrounds of learners at town schools, who mostly are from previously disadvantaged backgrounds and ensuring that schools report on finances in languages parents understand and linking budgeting process to schools’ educational goals. / MEd (Education Management), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014

This study focussed on the budget control and monitoring challenges for school governing bodies. The study engaged a qualitative in-depth research into the challenges school governing bodies experience regarding budget control and monitoring based on the fact that budget control and monitoring are dimensional tools of financial management aimed at ensuring proper financial management and accountability. The research, grounded on social constructivism and employing a phenomenological pragmatic approach for data collection was purposely and conveniently confined to town schools in the Ekurhuleni District. Data was collected using interviews with school principals, finance officers and a treasurer and Institutional Development and Support Officers. Findings from the data indicated that while there were areas where school governing bodies did well, they faced numerous challenges in budget control and monitoring. It was found that there were challenges regarding the budgeting process in so far as budget preparation, budget implementation, and budget control and monitoring. Miscellaneous challenges influencing the budget control and monitoring process found included poor financial reporting, the low level of parental literacy which seemed to influence the meaningfulness of and realistic nature of the budgeting processes and the generic, inadequate and poor training school governors were provided with. Recommendation from the study mainly concern the provision of customised, focussed and needs-based training in financial and budget management after determining the skills audit to determine training and capacity building needs of school governors, holding principal to account for financial management as ex officio members of governing bodies, reviewing the quintile classification of schools based on the poverty index and considering the backgrounds of learners at town schools, who mostly are from previously disadvantaged backgrounds and ensuring that schools report on finances in languages parents understand and linking budgeting process to schools’ educational goals. / MEd (Education Management), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014

Thesis(MPA.) -- University of Limpopo, 2022 / Schools depend on the funds allocated by the government, parents and to an extent donation from Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO). According to the Public Finance Management Act, 1999 (Act 1 of 1999), all public institutions must utilise funds in an effective, efficient and transparent manner. Schools as one of the public institutions are therefore expected to meet the expectations. To ensure compliance and smooth administration of public finances in schools, the government developed rules, legislations and policies as guiding tools in the administration of finances. In the school setup it is the responsibility of the school governing bodies guided by the principals to ensure proper and lawful usage of funds (South African Schools Act, 1996, Act 84 of 1996). Furthermore, South African Schools Act, 1996(Act 84 of 1996), stipulates that the responsibilities and the accountability of the finances rest on the shoulders of the Finance Committee. It is therefore necessary for the Finance Committees to have the necessary competencies in financial management and administration. The study aimed at investigating the competency of the Finance Committees in administering the financial resources in Phokoane Circuit schools. The study was guided by the Professionalism Theory to address the research problem. Professionalism theory also assisted in the methodology used to collect and analyse data to obtain trustworthy findings. The study is a qualitative research enquiry in nature. The study employed qualitative research methods in which data was collected through interviews and document study. Four no- fee schools were sampled. The treasurer, finance officer, SGB Chairperson and Deputy Chairperson of each sampled school constituted the participants of the study. The study revealed lack of knowledge and skills in financial administration, non compliance of the legislation frameworks and the financial policies, insufficient accountability; control and monitoring of finances, lack of teamwork, incompetence of Finance Committees members, insufficient financial resources and overlapping of responsibilities between the principals and Finance Committees in schools. Based on these findings the study recommends that in-depth training of Finance Committee be undertaken, Finance Committee members are developed in financial legislative frameworks and policies. Furthermore, the study recommends that the Finance Committee be developed on programmes in accounting, monitoring and control of finances. Additionally, the study also recommends that teamwork on the financial activities be enhanced and that financial resources in schools be adequately available. Through the development of members of Finance Committee the overlapping responsibilities between the principals and the committee will be avoided.