In traditional aircraft wing structural design, the emphasis has been on pursuing the minimum weight or improved performance. The manufacturing complexity or cost assessments are rarely considered because it is usually assumed that the minimum weight design is also the minimum cost design. However, experience from industry has shown that this is not necessarily the case. It has been realised that in the cases where no manufacturing constraints are imposed, the extra machining cost can erode the advantages of the reduced weight. As manufacturing cost includes material cost and machining cost, whilst reducing weight can reduce the material cost, if the manufacturing complexity increases greatly as a result the overall cost may not go down. Indeed, if the manufacturing complexity is not checked, the machining cost could increase by more than the amount by which the material cost reduces. To enable the structural manufacturing complexity to be controlled, manufacturing constraints are established in this thesis and integrated into the optimisation of the aircraft wing structural design. As far as the manufacturing complexity is concerned, attention has been paid to both 3-axis and 5-axis machining. The final designs of optimisations with manufacturing constraints prove the efficiency of these constraints in guiding the design in the manufacturing-feasible direction.

Competitive industries in the manufacturing sector have a holistic Life Cycle Management (LCM) view of business practices. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), which forms part of the LCM approach, is increasingly used as a decision support tool in the South African manufacturing industry. The Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) phase of the LCA tool has been standardised within the ISO 14000 family and aims to quantify the environmental impacts of economic activities. A number of LCIA methodologies have been developed in Europe, which can be applied directly when life cycle systems are assessed. The LCIA procedures that are most commonly used in the South African manufacturing industry include the CML, Ecopoints, EPS and Eco-indicators 95 and 99 procedures. The five European methods are evaluated based on the applicability of the respective classification, characterisation, normalisation and weighting elements for the South African situation. The evaluation and comparison is further based on a cradle-to-gate Screening Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA) case study of the production of dyed two-fold wool yarn in South Africa. Shortcomings are identified with the European methodologies in the South African context in terms of comprehensiveness and modelling approaches. A LCIA framework and calculation procedure, termed the Resource Impact Indicator (RII) model, is subsequently proposed for South Africa, which is based on the protection of four natural resource groups: water, air, land, and mined abiotic resources. A distance-to-target approach is used for the normalisation of midpoint categories, which focuses on the ambient quality and quantity objectives for the four resource groups. The quality and quantity objectives are determined for defined South African Life Cycle Assessment (SALCA) regions and take into account endpoint or damage targets. Following the precautionary approach, RIIs are calculated for the resource groups from conventional Life Cycle Inventories (LCIs). The calculation of the RIIs ensures that all natural resources that are important from a South African perspective are duly considered in a LCIA. The results of a LCIA are consequently not reliant on detailed LCIs and the number of midpoint categories that converge on a single resource group. The proposed model is evaluated with the SLCA wool case study. The case study establishes the importance of region-specificity, for LCIs and LCIAs. The proposed LCIA model further demonstrates reasonable ease of communication of LCIA results to decision-makers or managers. Subjective weighting values for the resource groups are also proposed, based on survey results from manufacturing industry sectors in the South African automotive value chain, and the expenditure of the South African national government on environmental issues. The subjective weighting values are used to calculate overall Environmental Performance Resource Impact Indicators (EPRIIs) when comparing life cycle systems with each other. The EPRII approach is applied to a specific LCM problem in the South African context, i.e. evaluating and comparing environmental performance for supply chain management purposes in the developing country context. Thereby, RIIs are provided for key Cleaner Production process parameters in the South Africa context: water usage, energy usage, and waste produced per manufactured product. / Thesis (PhD (Engineering and Technology Management))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Graduate School of Technology Management (GSTM) / unrestricted

The purpose of this report is to make a contribution to the South African Post Office Technology division. This is achieved by starting with a number of fundamental theoretical principles in related disciplines. Risk management is proposed to the management in an attempt to increase the success rate of information technology projects. Concentrating on methodology is not the only answer. Management should accept that risks are part of the development process and should be managed. Even though risks appear throughout the development life cycle, management should realise that the starting phase of any systems development life cycle is one of the most crucial events. There is a saying in Afrikaans: "Goed begin is half gewin". Meaning that if a project starts on a healthy basis, the rest should be clean sailing. This report should provide a useful starting point for further empirical analysis since it provides an overall theoretical framework for the systems development life cycle. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Graduate School of Management / unrestricted

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No description available.

This study compared the effectiveness of a multi-family treatment program on court-mandated families and voluntary families. The participants (n=109) included 36 voluntary families and 38 mandated families. Demographically, the families in each group were similar in age and education level but were somewhat dissimilar in their ethnicity and presenting issues. Participants completed a pre and posttest questionnaire, the Family Assessment Measurement III, which revealed that both groups improved on overall family functioning and had high attendance and graduation rates. The implications of these findings for practitioners are presented. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Family and Child Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2007. / April 16, 2007. / Court-ordered Therapy, Multifamily Therapeutic Groups, Court-mandated Therapy, Psycho-educational Groups, Multifamily Groups / Includes bibliographical references. / Ann K. Mullis, Professor Directing Dissertation; Nicholas F. Mazza, Outside Committee Member; Mary W. Hicks, Committee Member; Ronald L. Mullis, Committee Member.

Master of Science

see document / Master of Science

The primary purpose of this study was to examine a married person's distal religious (private religious practices, organizational religiousness, and religious intensity) and proximal spiritual variable (daily spiritual experiences, positive religious/spiritual coping, and forgiveness) associations to self-reported marital happiness. A secondary purpose was to examine these variable associations by gender. Three hundred forty-five married persons participated in the study. The findings showed that a married person's race and only organizational religiousness were significantly associated with self-reported marital happiness before considering proximal spiritual variables. After considering the latter, daily spiritual experiences, forgiveness, religious intensity, and race were significantly associated with marital happiness. Socio-cultural, distal and proximal variable associations to marital happiness differed in significance by gender. Symbolic interaction theory offered a conceptual foundation for interpretation. Implications for research and practice were discussed. / A Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Family and Child Sciences in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2009. / April 27, 2009. / Marital Happiness, Spirituality, Religiousness / Includes bibliographical references. / Robert E. Lee, Professor Directing Dissertation; Gary Peterson, Outside Committee Member; Kay Pasley, Committee Member; Ann Mullis, Committee Member.

Research has firmly established that children of divorce tend to divorce at a higher rate than the general population. The mechanism driving the intergenerational transmission of divorce, however, has not been firmly established. The two most promising theories to be advanced by previous research are the "good enough marriage" hypothesis and the modeling of relationship skills hypothesis. The present study employs structural equations modeling to examine the viability of these hypotheses and represents the first direct examination of the attitudinal portions of the "good enough marriage" hypothesis. In a sample of 225 young adults, evidence for an association was observed between perceptions of the parental marriage prior to divorce and both interpersonal tactics and prodivorce attitudes; however, the present study failed to document a reliable association between perceptions of the parental marriage prior to divorce and attitudes about commitment as predicted by the "good enough marriage" hypothesis. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Psychology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. / Fall Semester, 2007. / August 3, 2007. / Intergenerational Transmission of Divorce / Includes bibliographical references. / Thomas E. Joiner, Jr., Professor Directing Thesis; Frank D. Fincham, Outside Committee Member; Richard K. Wagner, Committee Member.