While service and support delivery for youth and families has been a priority within education in Saskatchewan for the past thirty years, educators and schools struggle to respond to the changing and often complex needs of students and families today.<p> The primary purpose of this study was to formulate a conceptual framework to explore the construct of social capital and the variables affecting social capital creation, acquisition and mobility. My secondary purpose was to then use network inquiry to investigate how networks of relations in a school community could be invested in and utilized to increase sources of social capital in an educational context for educators, students and families. As both an interpretive qualitative study and a critical qualitative study, this dissertation used focus groups to explore the experiences and sense-making of 16 participants in an educational setting to answer questions regarding social capital.<p> Having used network inquiry to investigate existing levels of social capital in a school community and the opportunities for social capital growth, the findings affirm the potential of network inquiry to contribute to the discourse on service delivery in schools. Furthermore, by identifying the academic and non-academic variables that contributed to successful collaborative partnerships and the determinants for increased capacity, process is emphasized before outcome, which holds potential for promising practices. Finally, because this study was conducted in an educational context, this may help policy makers to provide a framework to investigate processes for optimum service delivery and to frame educational policies for improved outcomes for youth and families.

While service and support delivery for youth and families has been a priority within education in Saskatchewan for the past thirty years, educators and schools struggle to respond to the changing and often complex needs of students and families today.<p> The primary purpose of this study was to formulate a conceptual framework to explore the construct of social capital and the variables affecting social capital creation, acquisition and mobility. My secondary purpose was to then use network inquiry to investigate how networks of relations in a school community could be invested in and utilized to increase sources of social capital in an educational context for educators, students and families. As both an interpretive qualitative study and a critical qualitative study, this dissertation used focus groups to explore the experiences and sense-making of 16 participants in an educational setting to answer questions regarding social capital.<p> Having used network inquiry to investigate existing levels of social capital in a school community and the opportunities for social capital growth, the findings affirm the potential of network inquiry to contribute to the discourse on service delivery in schools. Furthermore, by identifying the academic and non-academic variables that contributed to successful collaborative partnerships and the determinants for increased capacity, process is emphasized before outcome, which holds potential for promising practices. Finally, because this study was conducted in an educational context, this may help policy makers to provide a framework to investigate processes for optimum service delivery and to frame educational policies for improved outcomes for youth and families.

Magister Legum - LLM / In recent years the issue of medical parole has become a controversial issue in South Africa. Prior to 2012, at which juncture the law governing the release of inmates on grounds of terminal illness was amended, there were cases where the public deemed the law inadequate and susceptible to political interference.1 There can therefore be little doubt that an amendment to the law was opportune to ensure that the release of inmates was based on legitimate medical reasons.

No description available.

Early planting of indeterminate soybean varieties has increased yield potential in Mississippi. Narrow row patterns have effectively alleviated canopy closure problems and maximized light interception. Stresses related to inadequate drainage persist. Field experiments were conducted in 2006 and 2007 to evaluate productivity and profitability of bedding systems to minimize stresses related to poor drainage. Soybean planted on a conventional 100 cm bedding system provided a higher degree of growth and development and higher seed yields than flat plantings when border irrigated both years. Raised 100 cm-wide beds offered 23 to 45% greater net returns above input costs relative to flat plantings in 2006 and 2007 respectively. Under simulated flood irrigation, soybean planted on 200 cm-wide beds produced yields similar to conventional beds in 2006; however in 2007 200 cm-wide beds produced higher yields than flat planted plots but lower than 100 cm-wide beds.

No description available.

In rural areas of least developed countries, the preparation of meals remains the predominant energy consuming activity. Cooking is mostly performed with firewood – using the ancient “technology” of the 3-stone fire. This practice results in numerous challenges that hinder the transformation envisioned by the Millennium Development Goals and it therefore contributes towards slowing the development of rural areas. Activities focussing on amending this status-quo can be termed insufficient in scope- and sustainability. The main deficiencies of most projects are that the prime focus of the mainstream of these endeavours has been on demand side management, mainly performed by disseminating cookstoves, and that there has been little innovation in respect to raising stove adoption rates. As the strict efficiency focus obviously only captures one side of the problem – merely focussing on treating symptoms rather than providing an effective solution, this thesis stresses the need for a paradigm shift towards more holistic interventions. This work very much focuses on the topic of stove adoption. This is a complex topic - very much linked to attaining behavioural change. Deliberations concluded that the identification of enabling factors for adoption, which can be termed a prerequisite for developing sustainable methods for stove projects, requires a mix of instruments. To suffice the required data demand the initial literature review was complemented by a thorough assessment of the kitchen environment and the cooking behaviour of stove owners. The fieldwork concentrated on 210 beneficiaries of an efficient cookstove project. The applied methods included interviews, observations and pictorial documentation. As a remedy to the challenges and current shortcomings identified during field work and literature review, the author herein develops a novel and more holistic implementation strategy for stove projects – the so- called 3-Step approach. This is based on the simultaneous implementation of availing cookstoves, building capacity in respect to kitchen management, as well as performing small-scale household level tree planting. The research, which further encompassed the piloting of the 3-Step approach, led to the overall conclusion that the proposed increase in project scope holds a multitude of opportunities for improving the livelihoods of the rural target groups. The main impact of this innovative strategy lies in a decrease of average transaction costs as well as in a considerable increase in project sustainability. As will be extensively elaborated, the former is achieved by a more effective utilisation of the extensive infrastructure of trained artisans. The latter refers to the expected income increase on household level, as well as to improvements in environmental- and human health. In combination these enable rural communities to better adapt to climate change.

Published Article / Despite the introduction of various legislative measures to improve the performance of local government in terms of the mandate to be an autonomous sphere of government, service delivery in South Africa remains questionable and local government in a quandary. Performance in this context is influenced by globalization, technological development and challenges such as the world-wide financial crisis, enforcement of debt collection policies, decaying infrastructure and an unresponsive political and administrative environment. Strategies are recommended to ensure that local government can move beyond this point to excellent service delivery.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 26-29, 1998 / Town & Country Resort Hotel and Convention Center, San Diego, California / An Improved AMI (Alternate Mark Inverse) Code used in telemetry system is proposed, its implementation and properties analysis are reported, including error performance analysis, power spectrum analysis, the relationship between acqusition probability of the first frame marker and error threshold and length of frame marker, etc. This type of code has the approximately identical power spectrum performance as the AMI Code. In addition, there have no long continuous zeroes in the data stream, which will cause phase-locked loop to fail. Using the Improved AMI Code, the equal probability of 0 and 1 is changed, which will increase acqusition probability of the first frame marker. Detailed description about how to create the Improved AMI Code is also discussed in this paper.

Introduction: Access to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) is a basic human right, yet globally748 million people lack access to improved drinking water, 2.5 billion lack access to improved sanitation and 946 million still practice open defecation. Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 66% of the global new HIV infections. Access to improved WASH is an important issue, especially for people living with HIV/AIDS. They are more prone to opportunistic infections like diarrhea arising from the lack of proper sanitation and access to clean water. In Kenya, there is a dearth of literature examining the association between HIV status and the access to improved water and sanitation. This study sought to address this topic. Aim: We set out to determine the association between HIV status and the access to improved water and sanitation in Kenya using the 2008 -2009 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (KDHS). Methods: The study analyzed 3753 HIV negative households and 422 HIV positive households. For descriptive statistics, a weighted sample was used to obtain the frequencies and percentages. Weighted bivariate and multivariable logistic regression was used to establish the association between HIV status and the independent variables of interest. Results: There were no statistically significant associations in access to improved water or improved sanitation comparing HIV status and covariates measuring the access to improved water and sanitation. We did find, however, a statistically significant higher odds of HIV positive households reporting treating their drinking water compared to HIV negative households (adjusted odds ratio = 1.4; 95% confidence interval 1.11, 1.84). Discussion: HIV positive patients are more vulnerable to opportunistic infections than the rest of the population.It is imperative for the Kenyan gorvenment to tailor specific interventions that are targeted to this particular group,through scaling up the access to basic sanitation and piped water as well as emphasizing appropriate water treatment methods at the point of use.