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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Canterbury, 2008. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 287-334). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD (Physiotherapy) / The interaction between impairment and environmental factors impose a certain degree of incapacity on individuals, often undermining their freedom to function. Despite the fact that this disablement may require support services to forestall loss of function, little research has been conducted in Africa and the Sub-Saharan region, more specifically in Kenya, to explore persons with disabilities support services needs and utilization. There is also a paucity of information on predictors of PWDs' use of existing support services. In addition, Kenya lacks a disability policy.

Magister Educationis - MEd / South Africa has a history of inequalities due to the Apartheid system, much of this is reflected in Educational policies regarding Special Education, Specialised Education and Educational Support Services resulting in inadequate education. "Education White Paper 6", (Department of Education, 2006) is a response by the South African government to the inequalities, which constitute as barriers to learning. The key to reducing barriers to learning at all levels of education lies in the strengthening of Education Support Services, (Department of Education, 2001). Thus Support Services Systems are established at various levels including National, Provincial, Regional, and Education Districts and at Institutional Level. At the level of Institutions, Institutional Level Support Teams are established as a school -based team, with its primary function to put in place learner and educator support services. Institutional Level Support Teams (ILSTs) are expected to co-opt expertise from the school community, collaborate with the local community, parents and the District department of education. The Institutional Level Support Teams are expected to collaborate or form partnership to achieve their common goals and successful achievement of their objectives. The main objective of this study was to gain insight into educator's perspectives on collaboration or forming partnership with other members of their schools' ILSTs. These perspectives related to the attitudes educators have towards collaboration in the ILST, the benefits they consider deriving from their work at the ILST, the activities they involve themselves in and the challenges they face while collaborating with other members of their schools' ILST. The study adopted a mixed methods approach and involved teachers of four high schools in the Western Cape. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected using questionnaire and interview protocol. The results of the analysis of quantitative and qualitative data collected for the study revealed that the educators who participated in the study expressed fairly positive attitudes towards collaborating with other stakeholders in the ILSTs. The participants felt that their participation in the schools' ILSTs was beneficial to the learners, parents and educators. All activities presented to them on the questionnaire were endorsed as those they participated in while collaborating with others in their schools' ILSTs. The participants also indicated that they experienced a number of challenges while collaborating with others in their schools ILSTs. These challenges include a lack of parental and community involvement as well as poor guidelines on the operations of ILST by the Department of Education. The study provides recommendation as to how to improve collaboration in the ILST.

Students experience stress due to many factors including educational unpreparedness, financial strain and the inability to integrate socially. This mixed methods study aimed to investigate stress levels of undergraduate students in a post-1992, Scottish university and the potential for measures of stress to act as an indicator of student withdrawal. Additionally, the project was concerned with students' use of support services and the development of a resource to facilitate student resilience with the aim to impact positively on retention. The level of perceived stress reported by students appeared to be high and was coupled with intention to dropout across all study levels. Students' psychological wellbeing appeared to be much lower than results published for the general population and actual withdrawal within the sampled cohort was higher than the University's formal figures would suggest. Perceived stress predicted a student's intention to withdraw but this association did not transfer to actual withdrawal suggesting that other factors, most likely coping mechanisms, play a part in mediating the withdrawal behaviour. Further data collection is required to confirm if a combination of perceived stress and coping data more accurately predicts actual withdrawal, however results showed that measures of perceived stress could be used to indicate a proportion of ‘at risk' students. Low use of avoidance and distraction coping was a better predictor of low self-reported stress than was high use of adaptive coping and this may have implications for interventions that endeavour to reduce stress through improved coping. Despite the seemingly high levels of stress and potential worry over dropout, students were reluctant to seek support and many were unaware of the support services available. An online, stress education resource was developed to build students' understanding of stress and the support available. It was envisaged that this would reduce stigma, aid in student self-awareness and self-assessment and improve their coping repertoire. The intervention was trialled alongside controls and results demonstrate that further work needs to be done to embed stress resilience into the student life cycle. The project reaffirms the need for concern over student wellbeing and highlights areas for improvement. Given students in this study may be considered ‘engaged', results bring to light a population, previously thought to be ‘low risk', but who could benefit from additional support to prevent unnecessary underachievement or attrition.

The use of technology has become fairly integrated into our personal, educational, and professional lives. Students with disabilities attending postsecondary institutions may require the use of Assistive Technology (AT) for their educational pursuits and access to other technology. This study quantified students' general knowledge of AT and specific knowledge of Dragon NaturallySpeaking software. In addition, this study examined the relationship between disability support services received and current knowledge of AT among students with disabilities in a postsecondary environment. Participants were recruited from those who received disability support services at a midsize university in Illinois. An online survey was administered to 41 participants that included the Prior Knowledge of Assistive Technology Instrument (PKATI). Results indicated that participants' knowledge was influenced by three factors; prior training in AT within a postsecondary institution, access and availability to AT within postsecondary environments, and personal confidence in understanding of AT.

abstract: Sexual trafficking, the commercial sexual exploitation of individuals for profit, is reported to occur around the world. Tens of thousands of women and children are reported to be trafficked into the United States each year. Reports indicate a negative impact on an individual’s physical, mental, and interpersonal health. Presently, therapeutic models have been proposed but not yet formalized. Current training programs are not focused on developing therapeutic skills. The primary researcher developed the present study to discern an understanding of the lived experience of mental health professionals who have provided therapy with this population. Moreover, the primary researcher sought to understand how these mental health professionals view current preparation programs. The present study used qualitative inquiry to examine the experience of practitioners in this field. Constructivism was used to center upon each interviewees’ description of their lived experience. Inductive thematic analysis was conducted to analyze the data generated within each interview. Thematic structures were intricately linked to the data generated by focusing on the internal elements of the interview rather than a pre-conceived structure. Validation was employed through analytic memo writing and audits. Findings were consistent with core components of therapy; however, analysis yielded some themes specific to therapy with survivors of sexual trafficking. Interviewees shared a common practice of conceptualizing each client and a motivation to build a safe and collaborative relationship, provide focused therapeutic structure, and support their clients beyond the average boundaries of therapy. Interviewees reported a minimal amount of interaction with training programs due to scarcity. The findings suggest an increased need for training programs to prepare professionals to provide therapy with this population. Interviewees described a need for sensitive and specific trauma therapy training, consistent with suggestions in the literature. Future research may include further investigation into training programs when more have been developed. Interdisciplinary teams were a common desire among interviewees. Future research may explore the efficacy of interdisciplinary teams with this population. Finally, interviewees indicated advocacy work as an intricate part of their role as a therapist with this population and future research could investigate how this may impact the therapeutic relationship. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Counseling 2018

Service Management (SM) is an integrated, cyclical and collaborative approach to the management of service requirements and levels. It involves the definition of client expectations, the satisfying of those expectations and the perpetual refining of the business agreement (Sturm 2001). SM in the ICT sector is a comprehensive process that extends beyond the development of Service Agreements (SAs). A number of identifiable steps constitute the progressive implementation of a managed services environment, the key components of which are a readiness to provide services, the accurate elicitation, management and satisfying of client requirements and the continual improvements to the business relationship. Unfortunately, a number of SM initiatives fail. These failures can be attributed to a lack of SM understanding, the absence of a fully implemented SM strategy, poor communication and people issues. This research describes an investigation of SM implementation. A number of recognised frameworks are explored and critically analysed. The common strengths of these frameworks and the results of an exploratory pilot study are used to construct an SM implementation framework. This framework is then tested empirically by means of an online survey, and revised in the light of the results of this survey. The framework comprises two distinct phases, namely a Foundation phase and a Managed Services phase. The Foundation phase comprises 8 critical preparatory activities that take a service provider to state of readiness to provide and manage ICT services. The Managed Services phase comprises 5 key cyclical steps for the management of ICT services, including Planning, Analysis, Design, Implementation and Review.

We are living at times, when information became one of the most – if not the most – required “product”. All the companies which want to survive, be productive and effective on the market sooner or later understand the value of information systems. In the near past a well configured and stable IS was an advantage, this is not the case nowadays. The competition is ruthless and managers realized that specialized information systems are needed to stay in the game. Because of these systems covers the complete company’s business they are extremely complex and without appropriate support they would be almost completely useless. The main objective of this thesis is to provide detailed information about the support of ERP systems and services provided after successful implementation.

With the increase in the world energy demand and environmental incentives, renewable energy sources (RES) need to determine their place as some of the primary power sources in future power systems. However, due to uncertain energy production, renewable energy sources cause unbalance in the power system due to the unsynchronized supply and electricity demand. The intermittent power production causes undesired power fluctuation, affecting the power quality and reliability of the power source. Energy storage is one solution that is debated to increase the reliability of renewable energy production. This thesis aims to model and simulate hybrid energy storage system (HESS), constructed of hydrogen and ultracapacitor energy storage, to investigate different operation strategies for everyday use and crises. The two different energy storage technologies complement each other, where hydrogen fuel cells can produce power for long periods of time while the ultracapacitor can quickly maintain the balance of production and consumption of electricity for a short instance. The HESS showed promising results for emergency power supply and supported service operation strategies. In case of a power shortage, the HESS could cover for the disconnected production. The ultracapacitor proved to be a suitable component due to its ability to support the shortcomings of a hydrogen energy storage system. Moreover, the HESS could meet the requirements to deliver support services. However, further studies have to be done to investigate how the HESS can deliver multiple support services to increase profit and help maintain the power system's balance and security.