The goal of the study was to evaluate the content, implementation and applicability of the Soul City social intervention programme (SCI programme) about HIV and AIDS targeted at the youth in the Northern Cape from an ecosystems perspective. The goal of this study was achieved through the realisation of the objectives of the study. The objectives of the study were: To describe the phenomenon of HIV and AIDS among the youth in the Northern Cape, South Africa from an ecosystems perspective; to describe the NSP 2012-2016 and the Provincial Strategic Plan (PSP) for HIV and AIDS in South Africa; to describe and critically analyse the SCI programme's focus on the youth from the ecosystems perspective; to evaluate the content of the SCI programme for the youth with regard to HIV and AIDS in the Northern Cape in the context of the NSP 2012-2016 on HIV and AIDS from the field workers' perspective; to evaluate the implementation of the SCI programme for the youth on HIV and AIDS in the Northern Cape in the context of the NSP 2012-2016 on HIV and AIDS from the perspective of the youth as service users, and lastly, to provide guidelines for the content, applicability, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the SCI programme for the youth with regard to HIV and AIDS in the context of the NSP 2012-2016, in order to enhance efforts to mitigate the impact of HIV and AIDS among the youth in the Northern Cape. Furthermore, a mixed-methods research approach was adopted to achieve the research goal. The quantitative and qualitative findings are described in Chapters 6 and 7 respectively. Triangulation, as mixed-method design, was utilised in this study. This enabled the researcher to produce complete and well-validated conclusions. The method of data collection for the part of the study about the youth was a group-administered questionnaire. For the qualitative part of this study, semi-structured interviews, with an interview schedule, were utilised to collect data related to the contents, applicability, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the SCI programme from trained field workers working in the youth sector and specialising in HIV and AIDS. The quantitative data was analysed using both descriptive and association statistical analyses. In the present study, the researcher strived to ensure a high degree of face validity by allowing experts in the field, for example, social workers practising in the field of HIV and AIDS, to scrutinise the research instrument as part of the pilot test. The questionnaire was piloted with 20 youths to enhance both face and content validity further. In the current study, an acceptable degree of reliability was prioritised and therefore a Cronbach alpha coefficient of 0.70 for all categories of the questionnaire was sought. The qualitative data of the semi-structured interviews with Soul City programme implementers was analysed using thematic analysis. An independent reviewer reviewed the theme generation and analysis to ensure consistency or the interrater reliability of the findings. This aided the researcher to identify patterns or themes from direct quotations and to provide rich data representation. Verbatim quotations from the interviews were used to support the themes. To ensure data trustworthiness, a high premium was placed on credibility, transferability, conformability and dependability. Analyses of three different sources of data, namely the literature review, the youth programme attendees/recipients and interviews with Soul City field workers were undertaken to answer the following research question. "To what extent is the content and implementation of the Soul City social intervention programme applicable to the youth in the Northern Cape?" Subsequently, the sub-question of the study was: "Does the Soul City social intervention programme take the different levels of the ecosystems perspective into account regarding programme content and implementation?" Several key findings were made in the quantitative part of the study, with nine sections of the questionnaire which focussed on: the Biographic details of respondents; Objectives of the Soul City programme for the youth in the Northern Cape; Applicability and relevance of the content of the Soul City Programme; Knowledge gained through attending Soul City; Attitudinal change; Programme delivery; Programme content; Programme facilitation methods and general aspects. Key findings were that there was no statistical association found between any of the variables in most sections of the questionnaire except for combinations of five questions in sections D and G. There was a statistical association found with regard to age where the respondents indicated that the SCP contributed to them achieving their personal life goals. Also in Section D there was a statistical association found where the respondents could see the impact of the SCP on their lives. There was a statistical association found between where respondents indicated that the SCP should focus on ways/strategies to fight poverty in their communities and also when they indicated that the SCP should focus on involving important people/stakeholders such as youth leaders. Lastly, there was a statistical association found between where the respondents indicated that the capacity of the youth in the community to fight the further spread of HIV and AIDS could be built by visiting the community. From an ecosystems perspective, the SCP programme appeared to be influenced by or aligned to micro-, meso-, exo- and macrolevel factors with varying degrees of success and focus areas. The programme's exolevel focus appeared to be more prominent and to a lesser degree the macro- and microlevels. The research found that the SCP is relatively effective regarding programme content and facilitation methods albeit to a limited degree. Furthermore, what was repeatedly clear was a need for the SCP's programme continuation and sustainability, because adequate effort had not been made for this despite the programmes' apparent value when it was operational. / Thesis (DPhil)--University of Pretoria, 2017. / Social Work and Criminology / DPhil / Unrestricted

La vérification des programmes est un enjeu majeur pour les applications critiques comme l'aviation, l'aérospatiale ou les systèmes embarqués. Les approches Bounded model checking (e.g., CBMC) et de programmation par contraintes (e.g., CPBPV, …) reposent sur la recherche de contre-exemples qui violent une propriété du programme à vérifier. La recherche de tels contre-exemples peut être très longue et coûteuse lorsque les programmes à vérifier contiennent des calculs en virgule flottante. Ceci est dû en grande partie au fait que les stratégies de recherche existantes ont été conçues pour des domaines finis et, dans une moindre mesure, pour des domaines continus. Dans cette thèse, nous proposons un ensemble de stratégie de recherche dédié à la vérification de programme avec du calcul sur les flottants. Les stratégies proposées pour les choix de variables et de choix de valeur se basent sur des propriétés propres aux flottants. Ces propriétés utilisent des caractéristiques des domaines des variables, ou de la structure des contraintes. Certaines propriétés qui portent sur les domaines des variables sont classiques comme la taille et la cardinalité et d'autres beaucoup plus spécifiques comme la densité. Les notions de taille et cardinalité sont équivalentes sur les entiers, mais ne le sont pas sur les flottants. Ainsi la densité capture une variabilité qui est très spécifique aux flottants dont la moitié se trouve entre [-1,1]. De manière similaire les propriétés qui portent sur la structure des contraintes sont, pour certaines tels que le degré ou le nombre d’occurrences, issues des domaines finis, et pour d’autres beaucoup plus spécifiques, comme l’absorption, et la cancellation; ces deux propriétés capturent des phénomènes qui sont généralement la cause de fortes déviations du programme flottant vis-à-vis son interprétation sur les réels et donc de l’existence même de beaucoup de contre-exemples. Pour chaque propriété, deux stratégies de choix de variables sont proposées. La première choisit la variable qui minimise la propriété, alors que la seconde choisit la variable qui la maximise. Les stratégies de choix de valeurs essaient quant à elles de tirer profit des phénomènes d'absorption et de cancellation. L'évaluation de ces stratégies sur un ensemble de programmes réalistes est très encourageante : ces stratégies sont plus efficaces que les stratégies standards. / Program verification is a major issue for critical applications such as aviation, aerospace or embedded systems. Bounded model checking (e.g., CBMC) and constraint programming (e.g., CPBPV,...) approaches are based on the search for counter-examples that violate a property of the program to verify. The search for such counter-examples can be very time-consuming and costly when the programs to be verified contain floating point calculations. This is largely due to the fact that existing research strategies have been designed for finite domains and, to a lesser extent, for continuous domains. In this thesis, we propose a set of search strategies dedicated to program verification with floating point computation. The proposed strategies for variable and value selection are based on specific floating properties. These properties use characteristics of the variable domains, or the constraint structure. Some properties that focus on the domains of the variables are classic such as size and cardinality and others much more specific like density. The notions of size and cardinality are equivalent on the integers, but not on the floats. Density captures a variability that is very specific to the floats, half of which are between[-1.1]. Similarly, the properties that concern the structure of constraints are, for some such as the degree or number of occurrences, derived from finite domains, and for others much more specific, such as absorption, and cancellation; these two properties capture phenomena that are generally the cause of strong deviations of the floating point program from its interpretation on the reals and hence the existence of many counterexamples. For each property, two variable selection strategies are proposed. The first one chooses the variable that minimizes the property, while the second one chooses the variable that maximizes it. Value choice strategies try to take advantage of the phenomena of absorption and cancellation.

Background: Children living in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) experience alarmingly high rates of maltreatment, frequently at the hands of caregivers. Group-based parenting programmes show promise for reducing and preventing child maltreatment, as well as for improving positive parenting, child behaviour problems, and caregiver mental health. However, parenting programmes can only benefit families if caregivers participate in them. Using secondary data, this study thus aimed to 1) identify factors that affect attendance and 2) investigate the impact of attendance on outcomes within two randomised controlled trials of Parenting for Lifelong Health (PLH) for Young Children for caregivers of children aged 2-9 years in Thailand (N = 120) and 2-6 years in the Philippines (N = 120). The interventions were delivered within existing service delivery systems in both countries, over eight weekly sessions (Thailand) or 12 sessions every second week (Philippines). Method: To address the first aim of this study, multivariable logistic regression models with robust sandwich estimators were used to examine family baseline characteristic as predictors of caregiver attendance in sessions. An exploratory approach was taken to test a range of factors that have previously been linked to attendance in parenting programmes, including economic and educational, social and health, parenting and child behaviour, and sociodemographic characteristics. To address the second aim, caregiver self-reports and observational assessments (Thailand only) from baseline, post-test, and follow-up were analysed using complier average causal effect (CACE) analyses to test the impact of attendance variability on the primary outcomes of child maltreatment, as well as secondary outcomes of positive parenting, dysfunctional parenting, child behaviour problems, and caregiver mental health. Results: Caregivers in Thailand attended 82.3% of sessions while those in the Philippines attended 61.8%. Overall, few baseline factors were significantly associated with attendance. In Thailand, caregivers who were less educated and those who were older were significantly more likely to attend sessions. In the Philippines, caregivers who were less healthy, those that who used more emotional abuse, and those who had boys rather than girls were significantly more likely to attend. Notably, caregivers who experienced higher rates of intimate partner violence significantly attended 8% fewer sessions in the Philippines. A comparison of CACE estimates to intention-to-treat estimates at post-test and at follow-up showed greater benefits of the intervention amongst caregivers who attended more sessions. Specifically, the strongest intervention effects were found for caregivers who attended at least 75% of the programme. Conclusion: This study showed no evidence that disadvantages related to lower socio-economic status were associated with attendance, suggesting that it is possible for vulnerable families in LMICs to attend parenting programmes. However, developing retention strategies that target subgroups who are at greater risk of missing sessions is especially important as higher attendance at sessions is positively related to greater improvements in caregiver and child outcomes.

Faced with dynamic and rapidly deteriorating environmental conditions, the government of Mozambique has embarked on environmental education programmes and campaigns (EEPCs) as a strategy for natural resource management and environmental conservation. However, there is increasing evidence to suggest that the implementation of these EEPCs in local communities are often lacking when it comes to community participation and contribution. The latter has often been cited as a major reason for the limited success of such EEPCs. To date there is little research work that explores the issues on the integration of local community Knowledge and practices, and community reactions to such environmental education programmes and campaigns anywhere in the world. Mozambique, a developing country in Africa, is no exception to this trend of ignorance. This research investigated the extent to which local knowledge and practices are integrated into The EEPCs that are implemented by the government of Mozambique. The focus was on the local community’s perceptions, engagements and reactions to the EEPCs. The study was conducted in four districts of the Nampula province in Northern Mozambique. The data were collected through in-depth interviews, documentary analysis and non-participant observations. The findings of the study showed that there is a lack of substantial involvement by the local community in all stages of the development process of the EEPCs. Furthermore, the study found evidence of partial and /or unsuccessful implementation of the projects in all four communities studied. The research concluded by arguing that without such active involvement of the local people in planning, designing, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and decision-making processes of EEPCs, the frustrations of government officials and the lack of substantial implementation of the projects in the communities that were studied should not have come as a surprise. / Dissertation (MEd (Curriculum and Instructional Design and Development))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Curriculum Studies / MEd / unrestricted

Background: With apparel and clothing being one of the most highly consumed products for everyday life, businesses within the fashion industry have much demand. In order to gain leverage in a competitive market, many retailers have different strategies and loyalty programmes have been an attractive way for customer relationship management.    Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to provide additional understanding of fast-fashion retailers’ consumer behaviour, while focusing on their perceptions towards loyalty programmes as an influencing purchasing factor. This study can be beneficial for fast-fashion retailer businesses seeking to improve their loyalty programmes for the development of customer retention.  Method: The study is conducted with a qualitative research design through conducting 16 interviews, with deductive reasonings to understand the phenomenon. The theoretical framework is interpretivism, which allows exploratory type of research to explore the paper’s purpose. For findings and analysis, thematic analysis was adopted to allow flexibility in the modification of data collection and research design.  Conclusion: This study’s findings and analysis identified three main themes linked to customer’s perception towards loyalty programmes: shopping criteria, benefit perception, and behavioural impulse. This suggests that customers do not regard loyalty programmes as an influential factor in their purchasing decision, but rather a second thought. By doing so, the purpose of loyalty programmes is hindered, resulting in repetitive purchasing behaviour being affected as well.

This study investigates how youth in Uganda experience televised HIV and AIDS educational programmes. Television is the medium that can be used to address the resurgence of HIV and AIDS in Uganda. The factors responsible for the resurgence include prevention fatigue and the saturation of HIV and AIDS messages in the media. The audio-visual component of television makes it possible to convey HIV and AIDS messages innovatively through education-entertainment. Despite its potential, television has not played a leading role in conveying HIV-related knowledge, skills, and attitudes to urban youths. The study required looking at the televised HIV and AIDS educational programmes from the perspective of young people. In line with the interpretivist and social constructivist framework, the primary source of information about the programmes is the experiences of young people who are the target audience. A qualitative research approach was used in the study and an instrumental case design in particular was employed in data collection. Data were collected through focus group discussions, personal interviews, document analyses and participant observations. Findings have revealed that young people can learn about HIV and AIDS from both educational programmes and television soaps. While they undergo sexual socialisation through television soaps, they have the capacity to distinguish between fiction, fantasy and reality. However, they dislike the didactic and authoritarian approaches that are used in the educational programmes. An important finding is that communication gaps characterise televised HIV and AIDS educational programmes. Some of the prevention messages and the values propagated by television HIV and AIDS education are detached from the experiences and world views of the youths. This could be attributed to insufficient knowledge on the part of HIV and AIDS educators regarding the way in which youth experience televised HIV and AIDS programmes. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Early Childhood Education / unrestricted

This thesis investigates both the information needs of the identified communities of Damonsville and Onverwacht and the contents of the selected Afrikaans literacy ABET programmes in order to determine whether the contents addresses the identified information needs. Educators need to develop material that is relevant and appropriate, for example, content that addresses the information needs of the targeted learners. The results of this content analysis were aligned with the information needs assessments carried out in the communities of Onverwacht and Damonsville. These two communities were chosen because of their close proximity to Pretoria and the high level of illiteracy prevailing in these two mainly Afrikaans-speaking communities. Both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies were used in the study. Two communities of Damonsville and Onverwacht were chosen as data collection sites so as to reveal their information needs through the use of questionnaires. The data collected was analysed by using descriptive and statistical tabulation for quantitative and content analysis methods and then compared. The main research question of the study is, “What are the information needs of the Afrikaans pre-literate adult learners of both Damonsville and Onverwacht communities and how can the content of adult literacy training material be tailored to match the information requirements of the identified communities?”. From the data derived from empirical study conducted, a list of activities which serve as information needs of both communities was compiled and could then be used when designing instructional tutorials so as that the content could match the specified needs of the identified communities. From the content analysis of the three literacy programmes, findings have indicated that there exist no correlation between the information needs of the identified communities and the contents of the literacy programmes. The researcher argues this shortcoming as a major implication to instructional design. Based on the findings of a comparison between the content of the Afrikaans literacy programmes and the information needs of the people in Onverwacht and Damonsville, a learning programme in the form of two lesson plans were compiled in which the identified information needs of the learners determined the content. Recommendations for the improvement of the content of literacy programmes that could be used in future were also made. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Afrikaans / unrestricted

In many organisations, air travel is an essential part of conducting business in order to meet company objectives and goals. The selection of a preferred airline is a complex undertaking. Corporations may obtain discounts based on expenditure commitments; the airline may have a frequent flyer programme; or a low cost carrier may offer a better alternative to full service carriers. The literature on corporate travel is fairly limited with determinants determining the selection of airlines having been studied from other perspectives such as the business traveller, thus, this study should make a significant contribution to this field by generating new information on corporate travel and in particular corporate air travel decisions. The literature review provides a demarcation of the broad concepts of the buying approach towards corporate air travel. Also discussed is the relationship between the key role players in airline selection: the corporate traveller; the travel management company; and the airline. Various determinants of airline selection by corporations are identified and the role of frequent flyer programmes is analysed. Furthermore, the move towards low-cost airlines as a preferred choice for corporate travel is investigated. The empirical phase of the research study focussed on identifying the determinants of airline selection by large-sized corporations in South Africa; the relative importance of frequent flyer programmes; and the move towards low-cost airlines as a preferred choice for corporate travel. The target population was sampled using a non-probability convenience sampling approach with a newly designed quantitative, ex post facto web-based questionnaire, distributed via e-mail to the target population. Exploratory factor analysis was done to identify whether an underlying structure of airline selection determinants exists from which the relative importance of frequent flyer programmes could be assessed. From the results, a model of corporate airline selection determinants was derived. Then, the model was compared to the conceptual model formulated from the literature survey. A number of important selection determinants were identified, and it became evident that frequent flyer programmes are, generally, not considered a decisive determinant in the selection of a preferred airline by corporations. However, the influence of low-cost airlines was shown to be considerable, in line with the endeavour to save on air travel expenses within a corporate air travel management programme. The findings should assist both corporations and airlines with the design of their air travel buying approaches and marketing strategies respectively. / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Tourism Management / Unrestricted

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 81-85). / HIV and AIDS are still affecting many people in Brazil, South Africa and across the world, even though much has been done to mitigate against its further spread. Often Brazil and South Africa are compared to each other because of their economic position in the world and also because of their similar political histories. This research compares the Brazilian and the South African HIV and AIDS National Strategic prevention policies and it also aims to find out why the HIV and AIDS prevalence rates took significantly different patterns in the respective countries. The study includes a policy comparison and qualitative in-depth interviews with 14 organisation directors whose main focus is HIV prevention in Brazil and South Africa. The mains findings revealed that one of the main reasons for the different prevalence rate in both countries was because the civil society in Brazil played a major role in pressurizing the government to respond to the pandemic, while in South African the civil society did not play a major role. The Brazilian government thus started responding to HIV at least 9 years before the South African government did. Also, the Brazilian National HIV and AIDS prevention policy has an action plan for each goal, while the South African Policy does not have action plans for their goals. The Brazilian policy is also decentralized to municipal level, while the South African policy is decentralized only to Provincial level. Another finding was that in Brazil the NGO sector was directly involved in formulating the policy while in South Africa the NGO sector was not. In Brazil the respondents had a good knowledge and understanding of the policy, while in South Africa the respondents did not have a good knowledge of the policy. In Brazil NGOs have formed partnerships between themselves in order to deliver better services and to make their voices stronger when pressurising the government. Respondents in Brazil also knew what other organisations were doing. In South Africa organisations did not know what other organisations were doing and the NGOs did not have strong partnerships between themselves.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / This study aims to determine the functionality of two adult literacy programmes (ALFA-REGULAR and ALFA-RÁDIO) provided by the Mozambican government, in Boane and Pemba. The prevailing popular conviction is that acquisition of literacy by individuals leads to positive and unproblematic social outcomes – the autonomous view of literacy (Street, 1984). This study forms a critique of this view, arguing, based on empirical evidence, that literacy is ideologically and culturally embedded in social practices and as such varies according to the social context. This is the ideological view of literacy (Street, 1984). This research employs an interdisciplinary approach constructed from the key notions of New Literacy Studies, Multiliteracies and Critical Literacy. The empirical research uses a qualitative research methodology based on a critical literacy ethnography informed by data gathered through interviews (with facilitators, learners, technicians and local leaders), classroom observations and document analysis. The empirical research seeks to determine the concept of literacy underpinning the literacy programmes in Boane and Pemba, addresses the profile of the programme facilitators and learners, examines the extent to which the literacy programmes respond to learners’ needs, motivations, expectations and access to technology, and explores the extent to which the literacy programmes address issues of development and citizenship.