Cloud-based Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) are highly complex systems compared to stand-alone IDEs that are installed on client devices. Today, the visual simulation environments developed as services on the cloud can offer similar features as client-based IDEs thanks to the advancements to the cloud technologies. However, most of the existing visual simulation tools are developed for client-based systems. Moving towards the cloud for visual simulation environments can provide better collaboration for simulation developers, easy access to the software, and less client hardware dependency. Proper guidance for the development of visual simulation tools can help researchers to develop their tools as a service on the cloud. This thesis presents a Cloud-based visuAl simulatioN enVironment for trAffic networkS (CANVAS), providing a framework that tackles challenges on the cloud-based visual simulation tools. CANVAS offers a set of tools for the composition and visualization of simulation models for the traffic network problem domain. CANVAS uses an asynchronous visualization protocol with efficient resource utilization on the server, enabling concurrent usage of the IDE. The simulation is executed on the server while the visualization is processed on the client-device within web browsers enabling execution-heavy simulations to thin clients. The component-based architecture of CANVAS offers a fully decoupled system that provides easier development and maintenance. The architecture can be used for the development of other cloud-based visual simulation IDEs. The CANVAS design and asynchronous visualization protocol show that advanced visualization capabilities can be provided to the client without depending on the client hardware. / Master of Science / Doing things “in the cloud” has become ubiquitous. The term “in the cloud” implies that a software application runs on a server computer somewhere in the world and a user with a web browser uses it over the Internet on a computer such as desktop or laptop. This thesis addresses the problem of how to create and execute a visual simulation of a system all “in the cloud”. We developed a system called cloud-based visual simulation environment for traffic networks (CANVAS). We selected traffic networks as an example problem domain to illustrate the capabilities of CANVAS. A person interested in creating and executing a visual simulation of a traffic network “in the cloud” can use CANVAS. Using a web browser on an Internet-connected computer, the user can develop and execute a visual simulation of a traffic network with the tools made available in CANVAS.

MAdmin / Department of Public and Development Administration / The study focusses on the challenges militating against community participation on the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) process in Thulamela Local Municipality (TLM) and to find strategies to be used to enhance community participation on Integrated Development Plan. The study is based on matters of community participation and IDP in order to find out how community participation in the municipalities can influence the planning process in an integrated manner. The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 (Act No. 108 of 1996) mandates local government to encourage the involvement of communities and community organisations in the matters of local government. IDP is the rightful platform to fulfil the aforementioned mandate in the local government. In this study, the researcher made use of a mixed research method where both qualitative and quantitative research methods are used. The research is qualitative in nature, but the quantitative method is also used in data interpretation, because data collected was based on the views and opinions of a large number of respondents and the analysis of results based on statistical significance. The researcher used the non-probability sampling and its subtype purposive sampling method to select the participants in this study. Questionnaires, interviews as well as literature were used to gather data in this research. Two types of data analysis were used when analysing the data. For data collected through interview, the researcher used thematic analysis (Narrative form) and for data collected through questionnaire, the researcher used International Business Machinery (IBM)- Statistical Product in Service Solutions (SPSS) Statistics V25. The researcher followed research ethics before conducting the study. The major findings of the study are: • The study found out that 38 (76%) of the respondents agreed that community members actively participate in IDP process. This is an indication that community members of Thulamela Local Municipality actively participate in IDP process. • The researcher found out that the majority of the respondents at 45 which constitutes 90% agreed that active community participation in IDP process plays an important role in the improvement of the basic service delivery. • The researcher found out that majority of the respondents at 35 which constitutes 70% of the respondents in the study agreed that community members are well informed about different types of participation in IDP process. • The researcher found out that majority of the respondents at 38 which constitutes 76% of the respondents in the study disagreed that there are enough resources to capacitate community members in order to participate actively in IDP process. v The main recommendations are: • The researcher recommends that community members should take a share of responsibility to actively participate in IDP process. Thus, the community members should consider it necessary that they strive to make community participation on IDP process fashionable. • The researcher recommends that there should be active community participation in IDP process because it plays an important role in the improvement of basic service delivery. Community participation in IDP process needs to be active for the basic service delivery to be improved. • The researcher recommends that community members should be well informed about different types of participation on IDP process. It is the responsibility of the municipality to inform community members about different types of community participation that they can use to participate in IDP process. • The researcher recommends that the municipality should make enough resources to capacitate community members in order to participate actively in IDP process available. The municipality should embark on a journey to raise funds either from other government sectors and/or private sectors. / NRF

According to s 23, 24 & 25 of the MPRDA, mining companies must submit a Social and Labour Plan (SLP) when applying for mining rights, and the local economic development (LED) of the SLP must be aligned with the local and district municipality Integrated Development Plan (IDP). The alignment between the SLP and IDP local economic development initiatives provides a platform for investment opportunity, economic growth, poverty reduction and infrastructure development (ICMM, 2006). The main objective of this research was to determine the extent to which the mining SLPs are aligned with municipal IDPs. The research was conducted using a qualitative method for three case studies, a literature review, a documents review (of the SLPs and IDPs), questionnaires and interviews. The mining industry charter gives mining companies targets for the development of local communities through their SLPs. The King reports on corporate governance also give the industry ways to report on corporate social responsibility and sustainability. The local government Municipal Systems Act governs the development of local communities through the development of IDPs as per s 29.There are also debates on the increase of local beneficiation by mining companies, thereby creating jobs and accessing incentives in the form of royalty payments and tax relief. In addition there is a growing demand for a portion of such royalties and taxes to be paid directly into the municipalities to improve the LED and infrastructure challenges. The main challenge with alignment is how mining companies deal with related community grievances and risks, capacity constraints at local government and the DMR, poor stakeholder engagement and the backlog of service delivery. Overall, in the three case studies the KPIs were generally aligned (criteria B) with the municipal IDPs, which indicates that there is a general compliance with the DMR regulations and guidelines. The SLPs, socio-economic background and key economic activities were aligned (criteria A) with the IDPs, while projects and programmes were also generally aligned (criteria B). The negative social impacts were just aligned (criteria C) with the IDPs while no KPI was found to be not aligned (criteria D) with IDP. Some of the initiatives to improve the positive social impacts were the continuous Social Impact Assessment (SIA) throughout the life of mine. Most importantly the research identified that there is a need to improve capacity in local government for dealing with local economic development as this will also aid/improve the alignment of IDPs and SLPs. / M Environmental Management, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

According to s 23, 24 & 25 of the MPRDA, mining companies must submit a Social and Labour Plan (SLP) when applying for mining rights, and the local economic development (LED) of the SLP must be aligned with the local and district municipality Integrated Development Plan (IDP). The alignment between the SLP and IDP local economic development initiatives provides a platform for investment opportunity, economic growth, poverty reduction and infrastructure development (ICMM, 2006). The main objective of this research was to determine the extent to which the mining SLPs are aligned with municipal IDPs. The research was conducted using a qualitative method for three case studies, a literature review, a documents review (of the SLPs and IDPs), questionnaires and interviews. The mining industry charter gives mining companies targets for the development of local communities through their SLPs. The King reports on corporate governance also give the industry ways to report on corporate social responsibility and sustainability. The local government Municipal Systems Act governs the development of local communities through the development of IDPs as per s 29.There are also debates on the increase of local beneficiation by mining companies, thereby creating jobs and accessing incentives in the form of royalty payments and tax relief. In addition there is a growing demand for a portion of such royalties and taxes to be paid directly into the municipalities to improve the LED and infrastructure challenges. The main challenge with alignment is how mining companies deal with related community grievances and risks, capacity constraints at local government and the DMR, poor stakeholder engagement and the backlog of service delivery. Overall, in the three case studies the KPIs were generally aligned (criteria B) with the municipal IDPs, which indicates that there is a general compliance with the DMR regulations and guidelines. The SLPs, socio-economic background and key economic activities were aligned (criteria A) with the IDPs, while projects and programmes were also generally aligned (criteria B). The negative social impacts were just aligned (criteria C) with the IDPs while no KPI was found to be not aligned (criteria D) with IDP. Some of the initiatives to improve the positive social impacts were the continuous Social Impact Assessment (SIA) throughout the life of mine. Most importantly the research identified that there is a need to improve capacity in local government for dealing with local economic development as this will also aid/improve the alignment of IDPs and SLPs. / M Environmental Management, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

The dawn of democracy and adoption of the new constitution heralded in a new political dispensation for South Africa. These development set local government in a new path as various pieces of legislations and policies were passed to transform local government from fragmented and racially – based municipalities into democratic and non – racial entities. Transformation did not end on amalgamation of racial municipal entities and change to racial composition of the administration staff but has to transcend beyond to ensure accountability, transparency, responsive and participation of communities in the affairs of local government to promote good governance. The Sedibeng District Municipality (SDM) established various structures, systems and processes intend on promoting transformation. However, its process of transformation is limited only to the structure and composition of the administration. Little was done to transform the reigning culture which has its roots in the apartheid past, despite the existence of policies including the White Paper on the Transforming Public Service Delivery (Batho Pele). Accordingly, the existence of new structures, systems and processes failed to curb corruption in the ranks of Sedibeng District Municipality. Currently, a number of staff members are facing various charges of fraud and corruption. The Auditor – General have found that millions of rands have spent without proper procedure being followed. The state of affairs give indications that existing structures, systems and processes are not solid enough to curb corruption. Furthermore, the situation is accentuated by the municipality’s failure to involve communities in the affairs of the local government. Communities are only used to rubber – stamp processes and programmes that are imposed by the municipality. This renders communities and community organisations useless and ineffective in holding the councillors accountable. Against the background of the problem statement, the hypotheses of the study were formulated as follows: * There is a non – compliance of municipal regulations required for transformation and good governance at Sedibeng District Municipality. * The leadership of the municipality does not possess adequate knowledge and the political will to monitor and ensure consistent adherence to regulations as required by law to promote transformation and good governance. The study utilized both qualitative and quantitative research methods. The study involved a number of techniques to gather information which includes literature study and empirical research. The findings of the study prove that there is a high level non – compliance of municipal regulations required to promote good governance at Sedibeng District Municipality. The responses of senior management also prove that there is a clear lack of leadership in the Sedibeng District Municipality. The study offers significant recommendations to improve the situation. The intend of the study was to explore and open avenue for further research in the field of change management (transformation of behaviour and culture), impact of cadre deployment in municipal performance and idea of public participation and involvement in the affairs of local government. / M Development and Management (Public Management and Governance), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014

Recentes avanços proporcionaram às grades computacionais um bom nível de maturidade. Esses sistemas têm sido implantados em ambientes de produção de qualidade na comunidade de pesquisa acadêmica e vêm despertando um grande interesse da indústria. Entretanto, desenvolver aplicações para essas infra-estruturas heterogêneas e distribuídas ainda é uma tarefa complexa e propensa a erros. As iniciativas de facilitar essa tarefa resultaram, na maioria dos casos, em ferramentas não integradas e baseadas em características específicas de cada grade computacional. O presente trabalho tem como objetivo minimizar a dificuldade de desenvolvimento de aplicações para a grade através da construção de um ambiente integrado e extensível de desenvolvimento (IDE) para computação em grade chamado InGriDE. O InGriDE fornece um conjunto único de ferramentas compatíveis com diferentes sistemas de middleware, desenvolvidas baseadas na interface de programação Grid Application Toolkit (GAT). O conjunto de funcionalidades do InGriDE foi desenvolvido com base na plataforma Eclipse que, além de fornecer um arcabouço para construção de IDEs, facilita a extensão do conjunto inicial de funcionalidades. Para validar a nossa solução, utilizamos em nosso estudo de caso o middleware InteGrade, desenvolvido no nosso grupo de pesquisa. Os resultados obtidos nesse trabalho mostraram a viabilidade de fornecer independência de middleware para IDEs através do uso de uma interface genérica de programação como o GAT. Além disso, os benefícios obtidos com o uso do Eclipse como arcabouço para construção de IDEs indicam que os recursos fornecidos por esse tipo de arcabouço atendem de forma eficiente as necessidades inerentes ao processo de desenvolvimento de aplicações para a grade. / Computational grids have evolved considerably over the past few years. These systems have been deployed in production environments in the academic research community and have increased the interest by the industrial community. However, developing applications over heterogeneous and distributed infrastructure is still a complex and error prone process. The initiatives to facilitate this task, in the majority of the cases, resulted in isolated, middleware-specific tools. This work has the objective of minimizing the difficulty of developing grid applications through the construction of an integrated and extensible development environment for grid computing, called InGriDE. InGriDE provides a unique set of tools, compliant with different middleware systems, based on the Grid Application Toolkit (GAT). We developed the InGriDE set of features, based on the Eclipse platform, which provides both a framework for building IDEs and the possibility to extend the initial set of features. To validate our solution we used the InteGrade middleware, developed in our research group, as our case study. The results obtained from our work showed the viability of providing middleware independence to IDEs through the use of a generic application programming interface like GAT. Moreover, the benefits obtained through the use of Eclipse as our framework for building IDEs indicates that this kind of framework satisfies the requirements inherent to the grid application development process in a efficient way.

WebIDE is a new web-based development environment for entry-level programmers with two primary goals: minimize tool barriers to writing computer programs and introduce software engineering best practices early in a student's educational career. Currently, WebIDE focuses on Test-Driven Learning (TDL) by using small iterative examples and introducing lock-step labs, which prevent the student from moving forward until they finish the current step. An initial set of labs and evaluators were created as examples of how to use WebIDE and were used in a pilot study in a CS0 course where students were split into two groups, one that used WebIDE and one that didn't. The WebIDE group showed a significant improvement in performance when writing a simple Android application. Additionally, among students with some programming experience, the WebIDE group was more proficient in writing unit tests.

Thesis (M.Dev.) -- University of Limpopo, 2012 / The study has been prompted by the initiative of the Local Government of South Africa in introducing the Integrated Development Plan in local municipalities in 1998 as an interim integrated plan. Local Municipalities in South Africa have to use “integrated development planning” as a method of planning for future developments in their areas. Apartheid planning left South Africa with cities and towns that have racially divided business and residential areas; are badly planned to cater for the poor; have long travelling distances to work and poor access to business and other services; have great differences in levels of service delivery between rich and poor areas; have sprawling informal settlements and spread-out residential areas that make cheap service delivery difficult. Rural areas were left underdeveloped and largely unserviced. The aim of the study was to evaluate the impact of the IDP on service delivery in Emfuleni Local Municipality. The objectives of this study were: to evaluate the effectiveness of the IDP on service delivery and its implementation; to assess the capacity of the municipality to meet the IDP objectives and targets; to investigate the perceptions of the Emfuleni Local Municipality ward and Proportional Representative (PR) Councillors on their mandate and service delivery; and to identify and recommend strategies to enhance the effectiveness of the IDP on service delivery. The study was qualitative in design and collected data using interviews. The study found out that the public participation process, the Integrated Development Plan, service delivery protests and state of service delivery in Emfuleni has clearly shown that the Emfuleni Integrated Development Plan does not have significant impact on service delivery. Based on the findings of the study, the following recommendations are made: that there should an alignment of projects with community needs, establishment of a monitoring and evaluation unit, strengthen the intergovernmental relations system and regular feedback, communication and interaction with communities. These systems and structures will ensure that there is regular and coherent participation and involvement of the community as far as possible.

Thesis (M. Development and Management)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2006.

South Africa is a signatory to the Rio Earth Summit Agenda 21 and the World Summit on Sustainable Development's, Johannesburg Plan of lmplernentation. These documents are the definitive guidelines towards sustainable development. As a local authority within South Africa, Ekurhuleni is therefore obliged to implement these sustainability principles as highlighted in Chapter 28 of Agenda 21, namely Local Agenda 21. Various tools are available to implement the Local Agenda 21 principles. The Municipal Systems Act, 32 of 2000, prescribes the compilation of an lntegrated Development Plan for all local authorities, part of this is a Performance Management System that measure performance in terms of specified indicators. Another management tool is the State of the Environment Report, which in turn identifies indicators in terms of which environmentally sustainable development can be measured. The Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality's lntegrated Development Plan have been compared with the objectives set out in Agenda 21 and the Johannesburg Plan of lmplementation, to assess whether this document can be used as the Ekurhuleni Local Agenda 21 Strategy. It was found that the requirements for an lntegrated Development Plan are very similar to the requirements for a Local Agenda 21. The Ekurhuleni lntegrated Development Plan to a great extent complies with the Agenda 21 and Johannesburg Plan of lmplementation. In terms of sustainable development, the economic and social aspects, receive substantial attention, however the biophysical environmental aspect of sustainable development is not sufficiently integrated into all aspects of the lntegrated Development Plan. Neither are the target dates as specified in the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation highlighted in the lntegrated Development Plan. By integrating the biophysical environmental aspects into the Ekurhuleni lntegrated Development Plan and setting target dates in line with the Johannesburg Plan of lmplernentation great strides will be made towards achieving sustainable development. If the further step is taken to combine the sustainability indictors as identified in the state of the Environment Report with the Performance Management System, the Ekurhuleni lntegrated Development Plan with its Performance Management System, can be accepted as the Ekurhuleni Local Agenda 21 Strategy. / Thesis (M. Omgewingsbestuur)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2004