The study investigates the effect of mushrooming, unaccountability unsupervised leadership tendency, which has affected the African religiosity and took it by storm. Hence, the study of this nature will gaze its attention in South African townships in particular. Thus, by referring “independent church” a researcher does not specifically mean traditional churches who gain independence from western churches, which were planted in the African soil, but rather means the regular breaking away of churches by leaders, in order to start their own, if they do not see eye to eye with the current church leader. These are modern churches, which are young and most of them are yet in ownership of land and infrastructure. On the other hand, a researcher designates independent prophetic or new charismatic churches because these churches are the extension of the charismatic movement or neo-Pentecostals. In Addition, it is also due to practices by these churches, which are bizarre and unusual, which includes, eating of grass, eating of snakes, drinking of petrol, spraying of Doom on the congregants and other experiences Kgatle (2017) denotes in his study, to demonstrate the power of God (2017). As practices such as these are a new phenomenon in the history of South African church. Hence, they are called Prophetic based on showing more interest in prophesy, healing, deliverance, and the gospel of prosperity. These pastors have autonomy and freedom to practice without any accountability. Thus, there are lot of questions asked about independent prophetic churches growth. Is it genuine growth? Can it be attributed to mission advancement? Many have attributed such growth, as a result of people who have pulled from classical Pentecostal, mainline churches as well and most probable other traditional movements. This growth could not therefore be attributed to missionary expansion, if it does, there is a notion that some followers who are attracted to these churches are purely drown to them seeking prophetic voice, either or miraculous intervention such as healing and deliverance. Hence, leaders who do not have a responsible structural place for accountability challenge a researcher. Thus, the situation has led to the damage of theology and image of the church. Henceforth, self-appointed, theologically untrained and lack of mandate from mother bodies by such leaders poses societal challenges and outcry. Thus, the bizarre acts committed by these independent prophetic churches have left many speechless and asking questions. What South African church has become? To what extent is the independency of the independent church? Which religious body do the leaders account to? Who carries the accountability of the pastor? Is the claim of reporting straight to God justifiable? Have these tendencies of being not accountable led to chaotic state, which, currently have plucked the church? Hence, the study is therefore investigating the effect of mushrooming of the independent prophetic churches and its unsupervised leadership, which has dented the image and landscape of the church fraternity; thus, the above questions have helped to guide the research. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Practical Theology / PhD / Unrestricted

Limitations of current eldercare monitoring systems leave a need for new solutions. A monitoring system based on a frequency modulated continuous wave ultra-wideband short-range radar is proposed for this application. The complete proposed monitoring system is comprised of four blocks: boundary detection, silhouette capture, human identification, and data transmission. This paper develops the RF front end hardware for the silhouette capture subsystem. System requirements are derived for the silhouette capture subsystem. An architecture for the RF front end is designed, and required individual component specifications are determined. Components are selected off the shelf or custom designed for each socket. Full transmitter and receiver level plans are calculated to ensure expected system performance meets system requirements. A component library and full system schematic is created, PCB layout is completed, and PCB files are generated and sent for fabrication. PCB traces and individual components are characterized over frequency, and methods that improve inadequate performance are documented and discussed.

The independent domination number of a graph G, denoted i(G), is the minimum cardinality of a maximal independent set of G. A maximal independent set of cardinality i(G) in G we call an i(G)-set. In this paper we provide a constructive characterization of trees G that have two disjoint i(G)-sets.

The independent domination number of a graph G, denoted i(G), is the minimum cardinality of a maximal independent set of G. A maximal independent set of cardinality i(G) in G we call an i(G)-set. The graph G is called i-excellent if every vertex of G belongs to some i(G)-set. We provide a constructive characterization of i-excellent trees.

Part one establishes the problematic of this primarily historical and theoretical work on indigenous churches in South Africa. The existing literature is surveyed, explanatory themes isolated and a critique of the dominant functionalist framework offered. A different theoretical framework - historical materialism - is proposed, in order to bring new insights into the explanation of indigenous churches. A periodisation of the South African social formation, and three corresponding forms of indigenous churches is proposed. Part two considers each of these in a schematic form. It is hypothesized that Ethiopian churches arose at the turn of the century in the Transvaal and Eastern Cape amongst the emerging African petit-bourgeoisie. They were the religious response to unequal incorporation in the developing capitalist social formation. An early form of Zionism, Zion City Churches, arose between the two World Wars, in a period of intense resistance to proletarianization. In each region they were shaped by the particular conditions and conflicts. An attempt is made to demonstrate that, in contrast, Zionist-Apostolics arose after World War II as a church of the black working class. Instead of explaining them in terms of acculturation, it is hypothesized that their healing form can be understood as an expression and a protest of the alienation of the black working class. As a religious-cultural innovation they succeed in subverting missionary hegemony and gaining control over the means of salvation, and in this way, of their own lives. Part three attempts to evaluate the contribution of a historical materialist analysis to understanding religion, and to isolate directions for future research.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The unfolded protein response (UPR) is important for cell adaptation to accumulation of unfolded proteins in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). A central UPR sensor of ER stress is PKR- like ER Kinase (PERK), which phosphorylates eIF2 to reduce global translation and help mitigate ER stress. While this is a survival mechanism that serves to save the cell from catastrophic events during ER stress, PERK can also be activated in cancer cells due to genetic changes and exposure to stresses inherent in the tumor micro-environment. Published reports have indicated that PERK is activated in cancer cells in response to hypoxia, nutrient deprivation, matrix detachment, and increased protein load by oncogene activation to facilitate cell survival. The UPR features PERK and another ER stress sensory protein, IRE1α, which also regulates the dynamic assembly of the actin cytoskeleton; loss of either PERK or IRE1α functions decrease cell migration activity. We hypothesized that PERK is required for anchorage-independent survival of the cancer cell line HCT116 and that PERK is essential for cell migration. Consistent with these premises, inhibition of PERK using pharmacological inhibitors GSK2656157 and LY-4 in suspended cells showed reduced growth. Furthermore, PERK-deficient cells showed reduced migration in transwell migration assays as compared to their wild type counterpart. These results suggest that PERK facilitates anchorage-independent growth of cancer cells and cell migration.

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In Essay 1, we examine the departure of independent directors among 525 Taiwanese publicly listed firms with independent directors on the board between 2002 and 2006. We find that the accounting restatements is positively associated with the number (and the rate) of departures in the firm. This result implies that deteriorating financial reporting quality is related to the departures, which is consistent with Srinivasan's (2005) finding among the U.S. firms. We also find the number (and the rate) of departures is positively associated with shares owned by controlling families. Our findings support the independent directors’ role for intense monitoring based on agency theory. The results also support Anderson and Reeb’s (2004) result based opinion that that independent directors can protect minority shareholders’ interest by hindering dominant or family shareholders’ opportunistic or expropriation behaviors. In essay 2, we examine if there are significant associations between firm performance and (1) directors’ shareholdings, (2) directors’ family shareholdings, and (3) independent directors’ career affiliations in 2,164 Taiwanese publicly listed firms between 2002 and 2006. After addressing for possible endogeneity and controlling for firm specific variables, we find a positive association between CEO’s shareholding and firm performance. Consistent with agency theory and incentive effect, this result indicates that CEOs have control over firms’ operation and have incentive to maximize firms’ value. Also, we find a negative association between firm performance and non-executive directors’ shareholdings. This result, which is consistent with the entrenchment effect, implies that the possibility of expropriating minority shareholders’ interest may increase with shares owned by non-executive directors. However, we find that the non-executive directors’ family shareholding is positively related to firm performance, which implies that non-executive directors may be motivated by their family members to improve firm value. The results also imply that the majority-minority agency problem (Villalonga and Amit, 2006) can be reduced when director’s family welfare is at stake. In addition, consistent with skill matching theory (Jovanovic, 1979), we find a positive association between independent director’s career affiliation of executive officer and firm performance, which implies that independent directors who are executives are likely to improve firm performance.

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