Entrepreneurial orientation (EO) contributes to performance with an outlook on business growth as well as business development and improvement. It is predicted that the failure rate of small, medium and micro enterprises in South Africa is between 70% and 80%. Millions of rands are being lost on new venture creations because of mistakes and problems that could have been avoided. The survival rate of SMME‟s in South Africa is relatively low indicating that less than half of newly established businesses survive beyond five years. There are a number of similar undesired events surrounding entrepreneurs. These events called for a study on entrepreneurial orientation with the aim to improve on the current situation. The South African government Gazette (2009) indicates that small and medium-sized enterprises contribute positively to the South African GDP and it is essential to help these businesses to grow and to develop. The primary objective of this study is to investigate entrepreneurial orientation in small and medium-sized businesses in South Africa and to assess the awareness and application of the five EO-dimensions, in order to ultimately promote entrepreneurial orientation in the entrepreneurial environment so that businesses can be successful and sustainable. The field of study is entrepreneurship with reference to the impact of entrepreneurial orientation on business managers and entrepreneurs, managing and creating South African SMME‟s. The private sector with specifically regard to micro, small and medium sized-enterprises in South Africa is under investigation. The study was carried out on selected product and service suppliers in the region of the North-West and the Gauteng provinces. Only businesses older than one year was considered during the research process due to the fact that most businesses that have not yet reached the first year is still under establishment. / MBA, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Entrepreneurial behaviour is examined in this study, with specific reference to fou industrial divisions in NWK Limited, situated in the North-West province of South Africa. The primary objective of this study is to investigate entrepreneurial orientation and perceived success in the Industrial division of NWK Limited and to make practical recommendations to enhance entrepreneurial behaviour in the specific division, the organisation and other corporate organisations. A literature study was conducted to define entrepreneurship in general. The literature study investigated the characteristics of entrepreneurs. The five variables of entrepreneurial orientation and two variables measuring perceived success were investigated. Lastly the establishment of entrepreneurship together with a framework and strategy to establish entrepreneurship in an organisation will be discussed. The study was conducted on the Industrial division of NWK, which consisted of four divisions namely: Epko, Noordfed, Opti Chicks and Opti Feeds. Questionnaires were sent to the target group of 609 employees and a total of 79 usable questionnaires were received on which statistical analysis were conducted. The reliability of the data was tested by calculating Cronbach alpha coefficients for the different variables of entrepreneurial orientation and perceived success of the organisation. The data was further analysed by calculating the mean, standard deviation and range of the individual responses and the different variables. Additional to the analysis the relationship between selected demographic information and the different variables was tested to determine whether there were significant differences in the means. Conclusions are drawn from all the demographic information as well as the different variables of entrepreneurial orientation and perceived success. Based on the data analysis recommendations is made based on all the relevant topics that have been identified in the study. The data analysis, conclusions and recommendations supports the suggested action plan that can be used to improve the entrepreneurial orientation and ultimately the perceived business success of the agri-business. The study is concluded with measurements of the achievements and objectives of the study. Finally suggestions are made for further research that can be conducted. / Thesis (MBA)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.

This study focuses on the need for an induction programme by which especially newly appointed circuit managers and circuit managers with little experience can benefit. This study is not concerned with the training programme for newly appointed circuit managers, but the emphasis is on the professional induction and continued development of educational leaders such as circuit managers. In order to get to the heart of the matter, a literature study was first undertaken to investigate the nature of professional development of which induction is one component. Also, problems that might be experienced by circuit managers and expertise they might need for functioning effectively have been lifted from the literature study. A few induction programmes in developed and developing countries have been analysed and compared to practices in the RSA. Secondly, an empirical study has been undertaken on the perceptions of circuit managers on problems they are experiencing and on expertise they need in order to function optimally in their new work environment. Findings in the literature study reveal that circuit managers experience distinctive problems, and that these problems manifest themselves within the circuit managers themselves, in their work environment, on managerial level, within society and within their careers as educators. Another distinction is that the managerial skills a circuit manager should have can be divided into four categories, viz. technical, personal, social and conceptual skills. The literature study also shows that formal induction in developed countries is run in a programme-driven manner, while in the RSA there is a lack of formal induction programmes as well as a formal mentor system for newly appointed circuit managers. Findings in the empirical study have shown that respondents experience serious problems in especially the work environment, on managerial level and in their teaching careers Less serious problems are experienced in the circuit manager's personal life and within the community. A further indication was that respondents considered all the skills as very important in order to function effectively in their new work environment. The above needs give rise to the formulation of directives for the development and implementation of an induction programme for newly appointed circuit managers. This instruction programme comprises four phases, and the themes of the respective phases have been selected in such a manner that the activities in the total induction process are purposeful and orderly, and aimed at a specific outcome. Recommendations of this study emphasize the importance of a formal induction programme as well as a formal monitoring system for newly appointed circuit managers in die RSA Also, there is an urgent necessity for a formal and structured job description. ongoing skills development and the establishment/formulation of a national policy, determining the nature and level of management training. Without doubt the most important influence on the quality of circuit managers in the RSA is their own expertise, and the induction of newly appointed circuit managers is the sine qua non for the development of competent education managers. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Education))--Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education, 2002

Natural fibers, such as hemp and flax, are emerging as cheaper reinforcing fibers for polymer composites. Renew-ability, comparable specific properties, and biodegradability make natural fibers more attractive than glass fibers. Vacuum Assisted Resin Transfer Molding (VARTM) is widely used to manufacture medium-to-large sized composites. The non-woven mats used in VARTM must meet manufacturing (permeability) and structural (volume fraction (Vf), thickness, fiber orientation, properties) requirements. Unlike glass mats, natural fiber mats are not available commercially. Design and development of natural fiber mats require knowledge on the relationship among manufacturing, structure and properties of these mats and their composites. Developing this knowledge is the objective of this thesis. Effect of needle punch density on hemp fiber mat structure (areal density, Vf, fiber orientation distribution (FOD), thickness, permeability) was systematically studied. The FOD was characterized non-destructively using X-ray tomography. The Effect of consolidation pressure during composite manufacturing on its structure (Vf, thickness, FOD) was studied. The modulus and strength of needle-punched hemp mat – thermoset polyester composites, manufactured using VARTM and compression molding, were measured. A predictive model for these properties and a modeling approach for the evolution of FOD and thickness during mat manufacturing were developed and validated. The results of these studies were used to understand the relationship. The modulus and the strength of the composites were significantly influenced by the Vf and the FOD, the evolution of which during composite manufacturing depended on the consolidation pressure and the mat structure. The latter depended on mat manufacturing parameters, namely the punch density used to bind the fibers together and the areal density of the web of fibers formed during air laying, and the FOD in the web. The permeability of the mat decreased with increasing the punch density and was found to be a function of both the Vf and the FOD. Despite this, the manufacturing of composite was not adversely affected, and the tensile modulus increased with punch density. The mat composite was modeled as an equivalent laminate, whose lay-up was determined using its FOD. The properties of equivalent laminate that was predicted using lamination theory compared well with the experimental results.

In 2013 the European journal of wood and wood products published an article regarding a new method to predict strength in structural timber (Olsson et al 2013). By determining the fibres orientation on all four surfaces of each board in sample of timber using a high resolution scanner the authors were able to achieve a coefficient of determination, R2, as high as 0.71 between bending strength and a new indicating property (IP). For the same sample of timber Olsson et al (2013) determined the R2 by axial dynamic excitation as 0.59. However, all boards used in their investigation were planed before scanning. This study examines if a high resolution scanner could be used to determine the fibre orientation on the surfaces of sawn timber boards of Norway spruce. Both band sawn surfaces and circular sawn surfaces were examined. The procedure in this investigation is described as follows. Firstly, both the band sawn and the circular sawn boards were scanned by a WoodEye® scanner and together with dimensions, weight and the first longitudinal resonance frequency, a modulus of elasticity (MOE) profile was calculated for each board. The MOE profiles were calculated according to Olsson et al (2013) i.e. by a transformation matrix based upon the fibres orientation and a compliance matrix based on material parameters for Norway spruce. Secondly, the corresponding MOE profiles were then determined after the boards had been planed. As a result two MOE profiles were determined for each board. An indicating property (IP) was defined as the lowest value along each MOE profile. To compare the results a regression analysis was performed in which the IPs defined before planing worked as predictor variable and IPs defined after planing worked as response variable. The band sawn band boards yielded an R2 = 0.94 and the circular sawn boards an R2 = 0.93. Further the standard error of estimate was SEE = 829.1 MPa and SEE = 640.9 MPa respectively. As a last step in this investigation the SEE values achieved in this study where implemented on to the sample Olsson et al (2013) used in their investigation.

Interactive tabletop systems are becoming popular platforms for group activities. However, current common tabletops do not provide capabilities to differentiate interactions among simultaneous users, i.e. to associate a touch point with its proper owner. My thesis proposes and explores the use of an important biometric property of users as the basis for touch discrimination on multi-user tabletops: Finger Orientation (FO). In this thesis, I first collect the FO ranges of users standing in different positions around a tabletop. Second, I implement a system that uses FO to determine where the users are standing, and based on that extrapolate the owner of the touch. Next, I evaluate the system with two separate experiments, present the results, and discuss all findings. Furthermore, I explore some enhancements with a simple quantitative study. My results indicate that finger orientation is a good natural biometric trait enhances multi-user recognition on tabletops.

Teachers are often in contact with children whose family members are affected or infected by the HIV and AIDS pandemic, or children themselves who are affected or infected by the HIV and AIDS pandemic. Often, it is teachers themselves who are suffering due to the HIV and AIDS pandemic. School training and tertiary training are one of the most important components, which need a lot of attention in a developing country. Teachers play a very important role in developing the youth’s thoughts. School training is often negatively impacted due to absenteeism of teachers, negative attitudes of teachers and the time wasted to replace teachers who are negatively impacted by the HIV and AIDS pandemic or who take medical discharge. Teachers often don’t know how to handle the impact of the HIV and AIDS pandemic and they are also unaware of resources available in this regard. The REds-programme is a support programme designed for teachers who are affected by the HIV and AIDS pandemic. The aim of the REds-programme is to provide teachers with support so that they will be able to handle the impact of the HIV and AIDS pandemic. The focus is specifically on teachers, as they don’t live or work in isolation. Teachers form part of communities and school units whom are directly impacted by the HIV and AIDS pandemic. The REds-programme was vi implemented in 2004. This programme is thus running, tested and still in the process of testing, for the past six years. Article 1 consists of the following: The nature and content of the REds-programme. The group work process, as well as a discussion of each group work session. Article 2 consists of the following: An evaluation of the REds-programme by means of the qualitative and quantitative results obtained. From the results, it is clear that the REds-programme is a very effective programme from which life orientation teachers can benefit. / Thesis (M.A. (MW))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012

Social cues, such as eye gaze and head-turns, can orient attention automatically. Social cue processing includes three sequential stages, namely cue selection, cue following and object recognition. In a typical social cueing task, a central face is presented and then attention is directed to potential target location by an eye gaze or head turn. In these paradigms, the standard finding is that despite the non-predictive nature of the cue (i.e., the target is as likely to appear at the validly cued location as the invalidly cued location), targets appearing at the validly cued location are detected and identified faster than targets presented at the invalidly cued location. The cueing effect starts to emerge at short cue-target stimulus onset asynchronies (SOA) (e.g., 105 ms) and diminishes at the long SOA (e.g., 1005 ms). However, because only one object was presented on one side of the center gaze cue in these paradigms, the social cueing effect could be interfered or abolished by the peripheral onset effect (i.e., the automatic orienting of attention by the abrupt appearance of a single object event). The goal of this dissertation was to develop a modified social cueing task to measure the temporal dynamics of social cue processing while eliminating the potential confounds from the peripheral onset effect. In the Cued Recognition Task, the peripheral onset effect is removed by simultaneously presenting a target and a distractor object following a non-predictive head-turn cue. Results from a series of experiments using the Cued Recognition Task showed that: (a) if the distractor was not presented on the opposite side of the target, the peripheral onset effect elicited by the target onset interfered with the social cueing effect elicited by the head-turn; (b) in the cued recognition paradigm, the reflexive attention orientation effect elicited by social cues could be inhibited at 0 ms of SOA, started to emerge at 105 ms of SOA, became stable at 300 and 600 ms of SOA and sustained at 1005 ms of SOA; (c) children with ASD showed equivalent magnitude of social cueing effect as TD controls, but they were slower across all conditions despite the fact that they were as fast as TD controls in object recognition. The Cued Recognition Model developed based on all the findings in this dissertation was described in order to provide an explicit explanation of how social cues influence everyday object recognition. / Graduate / 0633 / 0620 / 0623 / xubuyun@uvic.ca

Low Temperature Nuclear Orientation (LTNO) is an important technique in the study of nuclei far from stability. The theory of LTNO and its applications to the measurement of static nuclear moments and other quantities of spectroscopic interest are reviewed. Among the nuclei off the line of stability those in the A ~ 75 region are of considerable interest, exhibiting large quadrupole deformations, triaxiality and shape coexistence. LTNO measurements performed on neutron deficient bromine isotopes have yielded the static magnetic dipole moments of the nuclei <sup>72g,72m,74m,75,76,77<sup>Br, Spectroscopic information on ^72-77Se and also identified the ground state spin of ⁷³Br as l/2‾ Existing odd A and odd-odd particle-rotor computer codes have been extended in order to include a Variable Moment of Inertia (VMI) asymmetric rotational core. The formalism necessary for this modification is developed. The measured magnetic moments are interpreted within the framework of this particle - VMI rotor model. It is shown that the systematic reduction in the moments of the odd A nuclei ^75-81Br characterizes the transformation of the prolate ground state configuration from largely π[301]3/2 in ^79,81Br to almost pure π[312]3/2 in ^75,77Br. This trend is fully consistent with the increase in deformation towards the lower masses suggested by the known electric quadrupole moments. In contrast, the ground state spin of ⁷³Br can only be interpreted in terms of an oblate nuclear shape. This is the first evidence for the predicted prolate-oblate shape transition in the bromine nuclei. In addition the magnetic moment of ⁷⁴Br^m, by identifying a π[431]3/2ν[422]5/2 configuration, strongly suggests a positive parity assignment for the isomeric state. Finally, an experiment to search for possible T-violation effects in nuclear gamma decay is described. Using coincidence techniques, a measurement of the T-odd P-even quantity (I ‧ k x e)(I ‧ k)(I ‧ e) has lead to a limit on the T-violating phase angle between the E2 and Ml matrix elements associated with the 604 keV gamma transition in ¹⁹²Pt of sin η = ±11(12) x 10^-3.

This thesis describes Nuclear Orientation and radiofrequency magnetic susceptibility experiments on the enhanced nuclear antiferromagnet holmium vanadate (HoVO₄) from 1 K down to about 1 mK and in applied fields of up to 2.4 tesla. Adiabatic demagnetisation of single crystals of HoVO₄ allowed a mean nuclear spin temperature of about 1 mK to be reached. R.f. magnetic susceptibility measurements at approximately 2.4 mK and in an applied field of about 1.5 x 10^-2 T identified the spin 'flop' phase of the nuclear anti-ferromagnet HoVO₄. The Néel temperature T_N was determined to be 4.0 (2) mK which is in good agreement with the value of 4.8 mK calculated for the dipole-dipole interaction of the enhanced magnetic moments at the Ho site. Gamma-ray anisotropy measurements of ^166mHoVO₄ showed that in low applied fields (B ≮ 0.5 x 10^-2 T) and temperatures of about 1 mK the antiferromagnetic domains were uniformly distributed in the a-a' plane of the tetragonal zircon crystal structure. This was interpreted in terms of pinning of the nuclei due to crystalline imperfections. The spin 'flop' phase was identified in an applied field of 1.2 x 10^-2 T which is in good agreement with the susceptibility measurements. Demagnetisation experiments down to the relatively high residual fields of 4.2 x 10</sup>-2</sup> T and 7.4 x 10</sup>-2</sup> T and temperatures of about 2 mK showed that the effective field at the nucleus was much smaller than the applied field thus indicating that there was some antiferromagnetic ordering even at these relatively high fields. The magnetic dipole moment of ^166mHo was estimated to be 3.60 (6) μ_N from gamma-ray anisotropy measurements of some gamma transitions of known NO parameters. This value is in good agreement with the value of 3.69μ_N calculated for the Nilsson configuration [6337./2]_n [5237/2]_p for the extra-core neutron and proton respectively. Mixing ratio (δ) measurements for gamma-ray transitions between the (K^π = 2⁺) γ-vibrational and (K^π = 0⁺) ground state rotational bands of the daughter nucleus ¹⁶⁶Er showed that Ml transition probabilities are predominantly via ΔK = 1 band mixing which is in good agreement with systematics for deformed nuclei in this mass region. Nuclear refrigeration experiments on a powdered compressed HoVO₄ - copper pill allowed a lattice temperature of 3.9 (3) mK to be reached. Thermal contact measurements on a similar pill showed that the effective area of contact between the salt particles and copper was only about 30 cm² which was a small fraction of the total surface area available. Preliminary work on a HoVO₄ - gold pill enabled a ⁶⁰Co ̲C̲o thermometer to be cooled to 6.0 (l) mK.