The rise of terrorism and transnational organised crime (TOC) post-9/11, two previously separate phenomena, are now both a plague of the 21st century. The emergence of unconventional forms of terrorist organisations such as the Islamic State (IS) indicates new features in the crime-terror nexus. This requires rethinking of the conventional crime-terror convergence frameworks; including the crime-terror continuum (CTC) model, which is used to explain and categorise the relationships between organised crime (OC) and terrorism. The original 2003-2004 CTC model suggests that the relationship between crime and terrorism is not static but has evolved into a continuum. The CTC tracks down how the organisational dynamics and operational nature of both terrorism and OC changes over time. A single group can slide up and down between OC and terrorism, depending on the operational environment. Contemporary terrorism practices suggest that post-9/11 terrorist organisations have undergone significant transformations, and that the boundaries between organised crime and terrorism have become blurred. This brings into question the explanatory power and applicability of the conventional convergence trends, which are depicted in the 2003-2014 versions of the CTC model, to the reality of the transformation of terrorist organisations post-9/11. The conventional convergence trends revolve around ‘realities’ of relationships between OC and terrorism in the form of alliances, appropriation of tactics, integration, hybridisation, and transformation from terrorist to criminal entities or vice versa. The current realities raise several questions about the applicability of the CTC model, as an explanatory tool. Terrorist organisations can originate as criminal organisations, using ideological motives as a recruiting poster for criminal activities. This points to gaps in the relationship of contemporary terrorism and OC, which are found in the crime-terror nexus and its discourse. These gaps pave the way for rethinking and critical evaluation of the explanatory power of the CTC model in the post-9/11 period and lay the basis for the development of an alternative framework as a foundation for further research. This study aims to critically rethink the explanatory power and revisit the applicability of the CTC to changes in the relationship between crime and terrorism post-9/11. This study employs a systematic literature overview design followed by critical evaluation. It isolates key works on the crime-terror nexus and convergence phenomenon, and assesses their limitations, so as to better understand and tackle terrorism in the post-9/11 period. / Mini Dissertation (MSS)--University of Pretoria, 2018. / Political Sciences / MSS / Unrestricted

With the emergence of new media platforms one wonders about the impact new media is having on sports fans’ media consumption patterns. Are traditional media platforms still having the same impact on the sports fan relationship, or has there been a shift across to new platforms? Looking through the lens of the Psychological Continuum Model (PCM) framework, we analyse the impact of team identification and sports fans’ media consumption patterns.Trying to gain an understanding across various sports and to reach as many fans as possible, the snowballing technique was deployed. Using quantitative data allowed us to establish emerging patterns through categorical data. This study used cross-sectional data, which allowed us to take a snapshot in time of what the current trend in fans’ sports media consumption was. 235 sports fans media consumption patterns were analysed using the PCM staging algorithm and a sports media consumption instrument.The results throughout this study reflect that new media is having an impact on team identity and sports fan media consumption. The findings suggests that fans that display higher levels of team identification on the PCM framework, i.e. attachment and allegiance to teams, are more likely to engage regularly on social media, especially Twitter. As such, marketers, sports teams and associations need to look at how they engage with social media broadly and Twitter in particular. Various constructs impact sports fans’ media consumption patterns and, as such, marketers, sports teams and organisations need to ensure that they maintain relevance with their targeted demographic to ensure the continued engagement with sports fans. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

The topic of this thesis is a mathematically rigorous derivation of formulae for the magnetic force which is exerted on a part of a bounded magnetized body by its surrounding. Firstly, the magnetic force is considered within a continuous system based on macroscopic magnetostatics. The force formula in this setting is called Brown's force formula referring to W. F. Brown, who gave a mainly physically motivated discussion of it. This formula contains a surface integral which shows a nonlinear dependence on the normal. Brown assumes the existence of an additional term in the surface force which cancels the nonlinearity to allow an application of Cauchy's theorem in continuum mechanics to a magnetoelastic material. The proof of Brown's formula which is given in this work involves a suitable regularization of a hypersingular kernel and uses singular integral methods. Secondly, we consider a discrete, periodic setting of magnetic dipoles and formulate the force between a part of a bounded set and its surrounding. In order to pass to the continuum limit we start from the usual force formula for interacting magnetic dipoles. It turns out that the limit of the discrete force is different from Brown's force formula. One obtains an additional nonlinear surface term which allows one to regard Brown's assumption on the surface force as a consequence of the atomistic approach. Due to short range effects one obtains moreover an additional linear surface term in the continuum limit of the discrete force. This term contains a certain lattice sum which depends on a hypersingular kernel and the underlying lattice structure.

We present a unique design of a post-focal instrument suitable to detect fast changes of flux in waveband 350 - 440 nm. As it is not possible to measure the Sun as a star because of a strong background radiation in this waveband and using a thin slit makes it impossible to measure the whole flaring area we made a set of circular diaphragms of different sizes able to collect light only from a limited part of the Sun's atmosphere. For our data we also evolved new software technique based on statistical methods that even more increases a sensitivity on any changes in spectra. First results of observations of three X-class solar flares obtained in June 2014 proved significant increase of flux in Balmer continuum. One of these flares was measured from 20 minutes before a peak in SXR (GOES) so we were able to compare a whole impulsive phase with a state with no signs of a flare before it. Data suggest a radiation at Balmer limit (364,5 nm) of up to 5,5 stronger from flaring kernels compared to the quiet Sun. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Developing tissues are out-of-equilibrium systems that grow and reshape to form organs in adult animals. They are typically composed of a large number of cells. The constitutive cells of a tissue perform different roles in tissue development and contribute to the overall tissue shape changes. In this thesis, we construct a hydrodynamic theory of developing epithelial tissues. We use it to investigate the developing wing of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. This theory relates the coarse-grained cell scale properties to the large-scale tissue flows. We explicitly account for the active cellular processes in the tissue that drive tissue flows. In our description of the tissue, we also include the memory effects that are necessary to account for the experimental observations. These memory effects have a significant influence on the tissue rheology. Using this hydrodynamic theory we analyze shear flow in a developing fruit fly wing tissue. We find that the active cellular processes contribute to overall tissue flows and that memory effects are present in the wing tissue. We investigate consequences of these findings on the rheology of tissue shear flow. We find that the memory effects give rise to an inertial response that leads to oscillations in the tissue but it does not stem from the wing mass. Finally, we describe how the tissue rheology is affected by different boundary conditions. We then investigate the area changes during the pupal wing development and we construct a mechanosensitive model for the cell extrusion rate in the pupal wing. Analysis of cell extrusions in the context of this model also allows us to extract information about the cell division properties. Boundary connections between the wing tissue and surrounding cuticle are crucial for the proper development of the pupal wing. A dumpy mutant wing is strongly misshaped during the pupal wing morphogenesis. We use a simple model for the wing to show that the dumpy mutant wing can be described as a wild type wing with compromised boundary conditions. Finally, we analyze cell properties and tissue flows in a developing wing disc epithelium. Motivated by the observation of radially oriented active T1 transitions in the wing disc epithelium, we use the hydrodynamic theory to investigate the influence of such T1 transitions on stresses in the tissue. We show that sufficiently strong radially oriented active T1 transitions can contribute to the control of the tissue size. Results obtained in this thesis extend our understanding of the fly wing tissue rheology and the role of internal and external forces in the proper shaping of the wing epithelium. The hydrodynamic theory we use to describe the fly wing development provides a set of phenomenological parameters that characterize the tissue mechanics and can be experimentally measured. Therefore, we expect that future research will include and extend the hydrodynamic theory presented in this thesis.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The continuum of care is a public health framework for improving maternal health outcomes by providing comprehensive health services, at different levels of the health system and across the lifecycle. The framework emphasizes the importance of interventions to address the social determinants of health as well, alongside healthcare services. Although the framework is useful for visualizing service organization, it has not been adequately integrated into policy and practice in South Africa. In addition, there is currently no comprehensive approach to monitor and evaluate service provision along the continuum of care. The current approach is fragmented across programs and sectors and focuses on only a handful of indicators. This research explores an approach for measurement and monitoring of a comprehensive continuum of care for maternal health in South Africa, with implications for application in other low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

Using the methodology and criteria put forth by the Juvenile Justice Evaluation Center (part of the Justice Research and Statistics Association, Washington D.C.), an assessment for evaluation of the Metropolitan Ministries "Uplift UTM" Program was conducted using review of data previously collected by Metropolitan Ministries, examination of documents provided by the organization, participant observation, and interviews with Metropolitan Ministry staff. This assessment reveals that there are significant problems in several areas that must be addressed before their program can be formally evaluated; including data collection and organization, outcomes measures, client selection standards, and how the program is portrayed as opposed to how it is actually run. Preliminary analysis of the collected data suggests that there are no relationships between demographic information such as education, employability, or other factors, and successfully completing their program. Further analysis suggests that other factors related to rules, guidelines, and unpopular restrictions are related to the low success rate they have experienced. Based upon a literature review of successful programs, suggestions for improving the outcomes of Uplift UTM are provided.

Families of connected spaces Adam Bartoš Abstract We deal with two completely different kinds of connected spaces - maximal connected spaces and metrizable continua. A topologi- cal space is maximal connected if it is connected, but every strictly finer topology on the same base set is disconnected. Here, the name "Families of connected spaces" refers to the collection of all connected topologies on a given set, which is ordered by inclusion, and maximal connected topologies are its maximal elements. We study the con- struction of tree sums of topological spaces, and how this construc- tion preserves maximal connectedness. We also characterize finitely generated maximal connected spaces as T1 2 -compatible tree sums of copies of the Sierpiński space. On the other hand, we are interested in a general question when for a given class of continua there exists a metrizable compactum whose set of components is equivalent to the given class. (Two classes are equivalent if they contain the same spaces up to homeomorphic copies.) We introduce compactifiable, Polishable, strongly compactifiable, and strongly Polishable classes of compacta, and we investigate their properties. This is related to the descriptive complexity of equivalent realizations of the given class in the hyper- space of all compacta. We prove that...

The present International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF), the ICRF-3 is based on a catalogue of 4536 quasar positions obtained from Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) radio measurements. This radio frame is crucial for many applications, from measurements of Earth’s orientation in space to spacecraft navigation and measurements of sea-level rise. However, the deficit in ICRF source density in the South and lack of dedicated imaging campaigns in the South, to monitor structural changes, remain a big concern. These ICRF sources can exhibit spatially extended emission structures that can have a significant effect on astrometric VLBI measurements. The Celestial Reference Frame Deep South (CRDS) is a dedicated astrometric VLBI programme to observe Southern ICRF sources on a regular basis. In an effort to improve the situation in the South, these CRDS sessions have recently been optimized for VLBI imaging. In this thesis, I present VLBI images and source structure analysis results for southern ICRF sources observed in four of these CRDS sessions. For some of these sources, I present the very first high-resolution radio images. I also present results from source structure analysis and a corresponding assessment of astrometric quality, and I also present results from efforts to increase the ICRF source density in the South. / Mathematical Sciences / Ph. D. (Astronomy)

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