The dissertation gives the background to the need for management of roads and transportation research in the Republic of South Africa. The close co-operation between researcher and end-user of research findings in the above-mentioned fields and its application into practice, is described. The advent of autonomy of research institutions in 1986, highlighted the need for a structured approach for the management of road and transportation research. Tasks, previously undertaken mainly by the Division for Road and Transport Research of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research on behalf of the South African road and transportation authorities, had to be taken over by the Department of Transport. A transition period of five years was given (from 1987 to 1992) to implement a suitable scientifically sound system. Details towards co-ordination and formalising of needs such as determination, prioritisation, allocation, funding and control of transportation research are given. / Public Administration and Management / M.A. (Public Administration)

The dissertation gives the background to the need for management of roads and transportation research in the Republic of South Africa. The close co-operation between researcher and end-user of research findings in the above-mentioned fields and its application into practice, is described. The advent of autonomy of research institutions in 1986, highlighted the need for a structured approach for the management of road and transportation research. Tasks, previously undertaken mainly by the Division for Road and Transport Research of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research on behalf of the South African road and transportation authorities, had to be taken over by the Department of Transport. A transition period of five years was given (from 1987 to 1992) to implement a suitable scientifically sound system. Details towards co-ordination and formalising of needs such as determination, prioritisation, allocation, funding and control of transportation research are given. / Public Administration and Management / M.A. (Public Administration)

Mapping of the human genome has been instrumental in understanding diseasescaused by changes in single genes. However, disease mechanisms involvingmultiple genes have proven to be much more elusive. Their complexityemerges from interactions of intracellular molecules and makes them immuneto the traditional reductionist approach. Only by modelling this complexinteraction pattern using networks is it possible to understand the emergentproperties that give rise to diseases.The overarching term used to describe both physical and indirect interactionsinvolved in the same functions is functional association. FunCoup is oneof the most comprehensive networks of functional association. It uses a naïveBayesian approach to integrate high-throughput experimental evidence of intracellularinteractions in humans and multiple model organisms. In the firstupdate, both the coverage and the quality of the interactions, were increasedand a feature for comparing interactions across species was added. The latestupdate involved a complete overhaul of all data sources, including a refinementof the training data and addition of new class and sources of interactionsas well as six new species.Disease-specific changes in genes can be identified using high-throughputgenome-wide studies of patients and healthy individuals. To understand theunderlying mechanisms that produce these changes, they can be mapped tocollections of genes with known functions, such as pathways. BinoX wasdeveloped to map altered genes to pathways using the topology of FunCoup.This approach combined with a new random model for comparison enables BinoXto outperform traditional gene-overlap-based methods and other networkbasedtechniques.Results from high-throughput experiments are challenged by noise and biases,resulting in many false positives. Statistical attempts to correct for thesechallenges have led to a reduction in coverage. Both limitations can be remediedusing prioritisation tools such as MaxLink, which ranks genes using guiltby association in the context of a functional association network. MaxLink’salgorithm was generalised to work with any disease phenotype and its statisticalfoundation was strengthened. MaxLink’s predictions were validatedexperimentally using FRET.The availability of prioritisation tools without an appropriate way to comparethem makes it difficult to select the correct tool for a problem domain.A benchmark to assess performance of prioritisation tools in terms of theirability to generalise to new data was developed. FunCoup was used for prioritisationwhile testing was done using cross-validation of terms derived fromGene Ontology. This resulted in a robust and unbiased benchmark for evaluationof current and future prioritisation tools. Surprisingly, previously superiortools based on global network structure were shown to be inferior to a localnetwork-based tool when performance was analysed on the most relevant partof the output, i.e. the top ranked genes.This thesis demonstrates how a network that models the intricate biologyof the cell can contribute with valuable insights for researchers that study diseaseswith complex genetic origins. The developed tools will help the researchcommunity to understand the underlying causes of such diseases and discovernew treatment targets. The robust way to benchmark such tools will help researchersto select the proper tool for their problem domain. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 5: Manuscript. Paper 6: Manuscript.</p>

Most households from rural areas did not have access to basic municipal services prior to the advent of democracy in 1994. The most affected were those from the former homelands and deep rural areas from the former South Africa. Hence, since 1994, the South African government has inherited huge infrastructure backlogs which affect effective delivery of basic municipal services, particularly Free Basic Services (FBS), to alleviate the plight of the rural and poor communities. Municipalities have to be self-sustainable for effective service delivery, even though their revenue base is such that they cannot generate enough income to maintain, extend and sustain basic services. Yet, they are mandated by the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 to deliver services to all communities within their areas of jurisdiction, irrespective of whether the beneficiaries of the services contribute to their revenue. For this reason, the national government has committed in the Constitution to allocate funding to municipalities through the equitable share allocations to subsidise the costs of providing FBS to indigent households. However, the impact of the FBS programme on indigent households in the Polokwane Local Municipality has not been significant, given the effective management of the programme. Hence, this study was conducted at the Polokwane Local Municipality to establish the effectiveness of the management of the funding allocated for the provision of FBS. The primary aim of the study was to determine the extent to which the Polokwane Local Municipality effectively manages the provision of FBS and the related funding to establish deficiencies in the system, with a view to improve the effectiveness of FBS delivery to indigent households. The data comprised responses to a questionnaire, semi-structured interviews, documents and studies conducted at the Polokwane Local Municipality. The study highlighted that the Polokwane Local Municipality has developed an indigent policy for the implementation of the FBS programme; however, it is only applied in urban or established areas, thus only covering Polokwane city, Seshego and Westernburg out of a possible 265 settlements. Proper planning is also only done around these three areas, while estimations are made for rural areas or villages in terms of targeted households and budgets. Furthermore, National Treasury provided more than three times the funding budgeted by the municipality to fund the FBS programme. This suggests that the rest of the funds allocated for FBS delivery were used for municipal operations rather than for benefitting indigent households. Therefore, it can be concluded that the Polokwane Local Municipality does not manage the funding allocated for FBS effectively, given the limitations in the registration of indigent households as well as the planning, budgeting and implementation of the FBS programme. Finally, the study could not establish whether the municipality is making any impact on the lives of the indigent households as the municipality has not assessed the impact of the FBS programme on the indigent households since the inception of the programme in 2000. The study will enable the development of proposals and recommendations which can assist in improving the effectiveness of the Polokwane Local Municipality’s management of funding allocated for the provision of FBS. / Public Administration and Management / M. Admin. (Public Administration)