The goal of my study is to develop a mobile application to enable all visitors, including blind and low-vision visitors, to autonomously gather and share information about interpretations of art and to have a fully independent museum-going experience. With an application, blind visitors have more access to opportunities and tools in the museum, which empowers their museum experience. My study used a qualitative, mixed-methods approach to research how blind and low vision museum visitors might increase their independence in the museum space and discover ways to equalize their access without relying on museum educators. In carrying out my study, I conducted interviews and collected data based on observations and transcribed and analyzed them using a grounded theory approach. I used Freire's theory of pedagogy of the oppressed and hooks' theory of education as the practice of freedom to frame my study.

This study focused on independent EFL reading among Grade 11 students across public and non-public schools in Ethiopia. Students who practice independent reading develop a love for reading and ultimately become life-long self-initiated readers. Therefore, independent reading should be considered as a vital goal of instruction and research. The issues of focus in this study were students’ reading comprehension ability levels, attitude towards learning English as a school subject and reading its literature, reading motivation, reading strategy use, persistence in independent reading and access to reading resources along with inclusion of independent reading in classroom instruction and in English textbooks. To this end, the study used quantitative data (collected through reading comprehension test, structured questionnaire and independent reading follow-up checklist) and qualitative data (gathered via classroom observation and content analysis).The findings revealed lower predisposition towards and practice of independent EFL reading among public school students (n = 375). A statistically significant difference, in favour of non-public schools (n = 181), was also found between the two groups of students in scores pertaining to most of the variables investigated. Enhanced scaffolding of independent reading through improved instruction and resource provision, regular short refresher courses for teachers of English and further studies have been recommended to improve public school students’ involvement in independent EFL reading. / English Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (English Studies)

The upsurge of religious movements and independent churches in the Global South is bringing a new twist to world economic development not anticipated by many theologians and social scientists. With a syncretic soteriology geared toward the liberation of the whole person, religious movements and independent churches of the south are preaching to their adherents, mostly the poor and the marginalized, a message of faith in an omnipotent and compassionate God who is concerned for their weal and woes and who offers them an assured and holistic salvation. By placing their faith in God, the poor and marginalized people are discovering their true selves and are saved/liberated. This assured salvation (certitudo salutis), which is a total liberation of the physical and spiritual world, becomes, in turn, the motivational energy for capital development. The Zion Christian Church (ZCC) soteriological predicament stands at this juncture. Through processes of syncretization and purification, ZCC has managed to deconstruct the European/North American and African Traditional Religions soteriologies to construct a pure soteriology that is relevant to the socio context of its adherents. ZCC deconstructs these soteriologies by broadening, for example, the classic Christian soteriogical theory of Christus Victor in her notion of sin, death and the devil and the African traditional soteriological notion of uBuntu and spirit-power. The purity, or holistic salvation, generated out of these processes serves as grounds for identity and economic empowerment of its adherents. With a holistic salvation that centers on healing, personal integrity and spiritual power, ZCC members have been able to achieve considerable success in the labour market by becoming an army of potential employees. They have also distinguished themselves in their work ethic, where they are seen as hardworking, disciplined, obedient and sober. Empowering its adherents economically through a religious soteriology, the ZCC has become an example of a trend that is shaping the Global South and is reviving the interest of social scientists and theologians to further investigate the impact of religious and theological formulations on the economic conduct of individuals. / Theology / D. Th. (Theological Ethics)

Social regulation, as applied specifically to the telecommunications sector, is a new phenomenon in most countries. It was only in the 1960s, with the establishment of regulatory agencies, that social regulation became important. The regulators are mandated by their country’s legislative and regulatory frameworks to meet social objectives. This study examined the extent to which ICASA protects consumers as it is mandated to do by the Electronic Communications Act 36 of 2005. The study found that ICASA has adopted mechanisms of protecting consumers, namely by conducting awareness campaigns, road shows and workshops in all the nine provinces of South Africa in order to educate and inform consumers about the procedures of lodging complaints and to make them aware of their rights. However, despite ICASA’s endeavours to ensure consumer protection, most consumers are neither aware of their rights and how to efficiently exercise them nor the procedures of lodging complaints. ICASA protects consumers to a reasonable extent but it can do more when the enduser and subscriber service charter regulations are finalised. / Communication Science / M. A. (International Communication)

Although women increasingly contribute their labour to an ever-burgeoning workplace, little is understood about their roles and sense of identity at work. Adopting a phenomenological approach to this study will allow the researcher to discover what women’s experience of their sense of identity at work encompasses. Furthermore, a review of the contemporary literature, and a phenomenological approach to the study employing semi-structured interviews and an explication of the protocols using the ‘modified’ Stevick-Colaizzi-Keen method (Creswell, 1998), may be used to explore women’s experience of their sense of identity in the workplace. Recommendations may be made for future research and organisational practice. The main findings indicated, inter alia, that the participants expressed their sense of identity at work from a ‘collective’ or social identity orientation. This finding also supports various feminist researchers’ viewpoints that women may develop a unique sense of identity relative to the environment in which they find themselves (Ely, 1994; Hakim, 1996). Themes that arose from the interviews with the participants included the concerns women express universally to a greater extent, yet included their interests, abilities, traits and material characteristics to a lesser extent (Ashforth & Mael, 1989; Hogg & Turner, 1987). The study findings also questioned psychology-based “person-centred” ideas about women’s relationships with other women at work, and added credence to the supposition that the demographic composition of an organisation may influence an individual’s experiences at work (Ely, 1994, p. 203). Furthermore, as social v identities are more significant in organisations, due to the incidence of social groups (Fisher, 1986; Mortimer & Simmons, 1978; Van Maanen, 1976), it would appear that as fewer women are employed in management and the upper echelons of organisations, they would therefore not benefit from being involved in the social environment of work, and would therefore not be in a position to adopt the identity of their counterparts (Becker & Carper, 1956). The contribution of this research to understanding women’s experience of their sense of identity, and the provision of a basic framework in this regard, may assist female employees, and their employers and managers, in their relationships at work, and in this way improve the employment prospects and retention of women. / Industrial & Organisational Psychology / M.A. (Industrial and Organisational Psychology)

Summaries in Afrikaans and English / Text in Afrikaans / In the recent decision in Kellerman v South African Transport Services 1993 4 SA 872 (C) a claim for the loss of the use of a thing not utilised in the production of income was apparently allowed for the first time in South African law. A number of strict requirements were however set for such a claim. For a considerable time a claim has been recognised in English and German law even where a substitute was not hired and where the article was used for pleasure purposes. It is submitted that this should also be the position in South African law because the loss of the use of a thing per se has an independent value. It is further submitted that the interest on capital value method (as per English law) can be used as starting-point in the determination of quantum. A degree of flexibility is necessary to ensure fairness and equity. / In die onlangse beslissing in Kellerman v South African Transport Services 1993 4 SA 872 (K) is daar klaarblyklik die eerste maal in die Suid-Afrikaanse reg 'n eis om skadevergoeding weens gebruiksverlies van 'n saak wat nie in die produksie van inkomste gebruik is nie erken. Die hof stel egter 'n aantal streng vereistes vir so 'n eis. 'n Eis word al 'n geruime tyd in die Engelse en Duitse reg erken selfs waar 'n substituut nie gehuur is nie en waar sake bloot vir plesierdoeleindes gebruik is. Daar word submitteer dat dit ook die posisie in die Suid-Afrikaanse reg behoort te wees aangesien gebruiksverlies opsigself 'n selfstandige waarde het. Dit word verder aangevoer dat die rente-op-kapitaalwaarde-metode (soos in die Engelse reg) gebruik kan word as 'n uitgangspunt by kwantumbepaling. Ter wille van redelikheid en billikheid behoort die maatstaf 'n mate van buigsaamheid te he. / Private Law / LL. M.

Text in English / Oruuano is an Independent Church in Namibia founded in 1955 because of members of the Herero community breaking away from the Rhenish Mission Church. Oruuano has the same doctrinal position as the Evangelical Lutheran Churches. In all church services it uses the standard Lutheran liturgical forms and the Otjiherero Lutheran hymnal. Belief in the ancestors is strong among the Herero. It is centred around the holy fire that is found between the main house of the head man and the cattle's kraal. The church does not acknowledge the ancestors, but it allows its members to venerate their ancestors outside the church. The church's approach is that of tacit consent. This dissertation discusses this approach and concludes that Oruuano cannot remain silent on the ancestors any longer. Time has come to deal with it theologically, showing the supremacy of Christ, while integrating Herero traditional practices and spirituality with the worship and practice of Oruuano. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / M.Th. (Missiology)

Device-independent cryptography provides security in various tasks whilst removing an assumption that cryptographers previously thought of as crucial -- complete trust in the machinations of their experimental apparatus. The theory of Bell inequalities as a proof of indeterminism within nature allows for secure device-independent schemes requiring neither trust in the cryptographers' devices nor reliance on the completeness of quantum mechanics. However, the extreme paranoia attributable to the relaxed assumptions within device independence requires an explicit consideration of the previously assumed ability of the experimenters to freely make random choices. This thesis addresses the so-called `free will loophole', presenting Bell tests and associated cryptographic protocols robust against adversarial manipulation of the random number generators with which measurements in a Bell test are selected. We present several quantitative measures for this experimental free will, otherwise known as measurement dependence. We discuss how an eavesdropper maliciously preprogramming the experimenters' untrusted devices can falsely simulate the violation of a Bell inequality. We also bound the amount of Bell violation achievable within a certain degree of measurement dependence. This analysis extends to device-independent randomness expansion, bounding the guessing probability and estimating the amount of privacy amplification required to distil private randomness. The protocol is secure against either arbitrary no-signalling or quantum adversaries. We also consider device-independent key distribution, studying adversarial models that exploit the free will loophole. Finally, we examine a model correlated between the random number generators and Bell devices across multiple runs of a Bell test. This enables an explicit exposition of the optimal cheating strategy and how the correlations manifest themselves within this strategy. We prove that there remain Bell violations for a sufficiently high, yet non-maximal degree of measurement dependence which cannot be simulated by a classical attack, regardless of how many runs of the experiment those choices are correlated over.

This study investigated the perceptions of election stakeholders with regard to the management of the 2011 electoral processes in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The involvement of civil society organizations, electoral experts and academia, including party agents as domestic observers and stakeholders in Congolese electoral processes, is crucial as they help electoral and participatory democracy to take root in the DRC. This study was underpinned by political trust, political support and neopatrimonial theories. Furthermore, a mixed methods research design was used in order to understand the perceptions of stakeholders on the management of the 2011 electoral processes in the DRC. The findings of the study showed that stakeholders‟ perceptions on the management of the 2011 electoral processes in the DRC were driven by both internal and external factors pertaining to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that have the potential to affect the electoral processes as well as the level of trust in the INEC and other institutions involved in the electoral processes. / Political Sciences / M.A. (Politics)

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 23-26, 2000 / Town & Country Hotel and Conference Center, San Diego, California / The Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) Multiple Access (MA) Return Service provides a communication path that originates at a customer platform (either a spacecraft or other type of emitter) and is routed through a geosynchronous Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) back to a customer control center or data acquisition location. Conventional operations provide Space Network (SN) customers with MA Service based on a schedule generated from user requests. The MA Service currently provides return link telemetry services to customer platforms with real-time, playback, and science data rates up to 100 kbps. This paper describes an integrated approach, using state-of-the-art technology and fault-tolerant architecture, to develop the next generation of TDRSS MA beamforming equipment. New designs will result in significant reduction in beamformer size and cost by at least an order of magnitude relative to the current MA equipment. This new equipment will provide the potential for increased usage of TDRSS MA services. The paper describes the in-development Demand Access (DA) Return Service that provides a new class of service using next generation technology.