Historically, any stigma surrounding sexuality places a burden on individuals who do not self-identify as heterosexuals collectively referred to as "sexual minority". Sexual minority university students possess multiple identities due to experiences of discrimination and victimization on university campuses (Mays & Cochran, 2000). These minority groups appear to have higher rates of anxiety, depression, substance use disorders and suicidal behaviour when compared to heterosexual students. This stigrnatisation and victimisation has led to the current study focusing on the psychological wellbeing, identity crisis and resilience of sexual minority students in a South African University. The researcher followed a narrative oriented design within the qualitative research approach. Data was collected through a narrative oriented design that allowed the researcher to dig deeper into the life experiences of the students from both individual and collective perspectives. Data was analysed thematically and feelings, values and meanings were connected through ideas and personal view points. Snowball sampling was used. The sample consisted of 11 African students, 4 gays and 7 lesbians with an age range between 19 and 24 years were recruited from different faculties and levels of study. Three major themes were extracted during analysis and the principal outcome of the study was that homosexuals have a major challenge in their future in the work industry. The results also indicated a poor psychological wellbeing with the students, some identity crisis and moderate resilience. / Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.(Clinical Psychology) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2014

Background: A shortage of nurses is experienced in aged care as these nurses experience adverse working conditions. Resilience might empower these nurses to survive, thrive and even flourish. A paucity of research exists regarding resilience in nurses caring for older persons. Objectives: The purpose of this research was to investigate the level of resilience in nurses caring for older persons, and to explore and describe their strengths and coping abilities, in order to formulate recommendations to strengthen resilience in nurses caring for older persons. Method: An explorative, descriptive design with multiple phases was used. An all-inclusive sample of nurses caring for older persons in an urban setting in the North West Province was used. During phase one (sample size n=43) the level of resilience, demographic information and narratives were obtained. During phase two (sample size n=17) focus group interviews were conducted. The quantitative data was analysed using descriptive statistics and the qualitative data using content analysis. Results: The participants had a moderately high to high level of resilience. Participants did experience adverse working circumstances and they needed resilience due to a need for balance, the emotional nature of the work, work ethics and the work environment. Nurses caring for older persons use personal, professional, contextual and spiritual strengths to handle adverse working conditions. Conclusion: Recommendations to strengthen resilience in nurses caring for older persons were formulated in phase three of the research, focusing on strengthening nurses‟ personal, professional, contextual and spiritual strengths in order that they can handle adverse workplace conditions. / MCur, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Real-time video communication over wireless networks is a challenging problem because wireless channels suffer from fading, additive noise and interference, which translate into packet loss and delay. Since modern video encoders deliver video packets with decoding dependencies, packet loss and delay can significantly degrade the video quality at the receiver. Many error resilience mechanisms have been proposed to combat packet loss in wireless networks, but only a few were specifically designed for packet switched video telephony over Third Generation (3G) networks. The first part of the thesis presents an error resilience technique for packet switched video telephony that combines application layer Forward Error Correction (FEC) with rateless codes, Reference Picture Selection (RPS) and cross layer optimization. Rateless codes have lower encoding and decoding computational complexity compared to traditional error correcting codes. One can use them on complexity constrained hand-held devices. Also, their redundancy does not need to be fixed in advance and any number of encoded symbols can be generated on the fly. Reference picture selection is used to limit the effect of spatio-temporal error propagation. Limiting the effect of spatio-temporal error propagation results in better video quality. Cross layer optimization is used to minimize the data loss at the application layer when data is lost at the data link layer. Experimental results on a High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) network simulator for H.264 compressed standard video sequences show that the proposed technique achieves significant Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) and Percentage Degraded Video Duration (PDVD) improvements over a state of the art error resilience technique known as Interactive Error Control (IEC), which is a combination of Error Tracking and feedback based Reference Picture Selection. The improvement is obtained at a cost of higher end-to-end delay. The proposed technique is improved by making the FEC (Rateless code) redundancy channel adaptive. Automatic Repeat Request (ARQ) is used to adjust the redundancy of the Rateless codes according to the channel conditions. Experimental results show that the channel adaptive scheme achieves significant PSNR and PDVD improvements over the static scheme for a simulated Long Term Evolution (LTE) network. In the third part of the thesis, the performance of the previous two schemes is improved by making the transmitter predict when rateless decoding will fail. In this case, reference picture selection is invoked early and transmission of encoded symbols for that source block is aborted. Simulations for an LTE network show that this results in video quality improvement and bandwidth savings. In the last part of the thesis, the performance of the adaptive technique is improved by exploiting the history of the wireless channel. In a Rayleigh fading wireless channel, the RLC-PDU losses are correlated under certain conditions. This correlation is exploited to adjust the redundancy of the Rateless code and results in higher Rateless code decoding success rate and higher video quality. Simulations for an LTE network show that the improvement was significant when the packet loss rate in the two wireless links was 10%. To facilitate the implementation of the proposed error resilience techniques in practical scenarios, RTP/UDP/IP level packetization schemes are also proposed for each error resilience technique. Compared to existing work, the proposed error resilience techniques provide better video quality. Also, more emphasis is given to implementation issues in 3G networks.

The outputs chosen for inclusion for this PhD by publication comprise seven articles published in peer reviewed journals, two book chapters, one research paper and two resource guides commissioned by professional bodies. These outputs explore two major themes. The first concerns the nature of resilience in social workers and identifies the inter- and intra-individual competencies associated with the concept. The second concerns how resilience and its underpinning competencies can be enhanced in social work education, both pre and post qualification. The report begins by contextualising the research within the existing literature, outlining my epistemological and methodological position and highlighting the importance of a pragmatic mixed-methods approach to research design, data collection and analysis. A critique of the outputs is subsequently provided together with a discussion of how I developed as a social work academic and a researcher during the research programme. Finally, the significance of the contribution to the body of social work knowledge provided by these outputs is demonstrated by identifying how the research has enhanced understanding of improving wellbeing in social workers though the development of a tool box of strategies to manage stress and foster resilience in social work training and practice.

This study investigates the process of resilience from the perspective of military wives during deployment. The study had two main goals: 1) to further understand the deployment experience, as it is lived personally and within the family, and 2) to develop a theory-based resilience model, guided by family stress and resilience theory, highlighting the role of communication within the family resilience process. According to the FAAR Model (Patterson, 1988; 2002), resilience involves three components: meanings, demands, and capabilities. Based on the goals of the study and the three main components of resilience, five broad research questions guided the study: How do military spouses perceive, interpret, and make meaning of their experience with spousal deployment? How do spouses cope with the spousal deployment experience? How do spouses perceive the family deployment and coping experience? What supportive resources and responses are most helpful for military spouses during spousal deployment, and why? And what supportive resources and responses are most unhelpful for military spouses during spousal deployment, and why? The data are also viewed through a lens of ambiguous loss theory (Boss, 1999; 2004; 2006; 2007), as deployment is a stressful situation that incorporates uncertainty, loss, and a presence-absence paradox for spouses and families. To investigate these questions and develop these theories, in-depth interviews were conducted with 26 military wives who were currently experiencing deployment. The results illustrate various aspects of women’s perceptions of their deployment experiences, including how they make sense of these experiences. Women did not only discuss their own personal experiences; they also reported experiences at relational and family levels. Paralleling these tri-level perceptions of the experience, women’s approaches to coping also occurred at individual, relational, and family levels. Different coping strategies within each level are outlined and discussed. Finally, women’s perceptions and evaluations of the responses they receive from others, both supportive and unsupportive, are reported and discussed. Based on the results, a transactional model of family resilience, highlighting the central role of communication, is proposed. Implications for theory (e.g., stress and resilience theories, ambiguous loss theory) and practice are discussed. Future directions for research are explored. / text

As all couples experience stressful life events, understanding how couples adapt to stress is imperative for understanding marital development. Drawing from theories of stress inoculation, which suggest that the successful adaptation to mild stressors may help individuals develop a resilience to future stress, this project examined whether couples who have more experience effectively coping with minor stressors early in the marriage would be most resilient to declines in marital satisfaction when faced with future, larger stressors. Study 1 examined whether couples who enter marriage with good relationship skills and some experience coping with minor stressors exhibit the most stress resilience during the first two years of marriage. Study 2 examined whether couples who enter marriage with good skills and some experience with stress exhibit a greater resilience to the declines in marital satisfaction that often follow the transition to parenthood. Both studies revealed that spouses who have both good relationship skills and early stress experience exhibit better marital outcomes than spouses who have good skills, but little or no experience with stress. Thus, simply possessing good relationship skills may not be sufficient to shield marital satisfaction from stress. Rather, couples also may need practice applying those skills to minor stressors. / text

This report examines the leadership structures of four disaster recovery housing programs in two Texas communities in order to identify leadership models that contribute to future individual and community resilience. Disaster recovery is a physical and social process that requires both scientific knowledge of best practices and practical local knowledge of community context. The level of a community's physical, organizational, and social capacity relates directly to its ability to deliver needed disaster recovery services. The variation of capacity at all levels of governmental agencies and community organizations across Texas has become dramatically apparent over the last decade of disasters with clear consequences to the success of disaster recovery efforts. Information collected from those involved in the housing recovery efforts from two recent disasters in Texas, Hurricane Dolly in 2008 and the Bastrop Complex Wildfires in 2011, provide a window into the current governance models being employed. Communities in the Rio Grande Valley and Bastrop County are now administering multiple housing recovery efforts through assorted levels of government and community organization. By documenting and analyzing the structure of leadership in each program through quantitative and qualitative methods this report reconstructs the capacities of each leadership model that are relevant to articulated recovery goals. Findings from this analysis reveal opportunities for improvement in the design of future disaster recovery programs at the state and local level. / text

This phenomenological study investigated the benefits of a weekly canoe program for vulnerable Grade 5 First Nations students at an elementary school in Victoria, BC. The experience of student and adult participants was explored with a focus on how perceived benefits related to protective factors of resilience. This study builds on research of impacts of outdoor adventure-based, wilderness therapy, recreational, experiential, and environmental education programs. Interviews were conducted with 11 students, and 13 adults, including an Elder, the principal, school staff, parents, and volunteers. This research indicates the canoe program enhanced student's inner resources, such as self-efficacy, self-esteem and mental and physical health, and outer resources, such as connections to peers, community resources, culture, school and nature. Through many interconnections between these resources, the canoe program helped address students' vulnerability, promote their resilience and reconnect them to their traditional waterway. Future research and program recommendations are presented.

The purpose of this study was to identify and understand the social-ecological resources which encouraged resilient Basotho youth in the rural areas of the Thabo Mofutsanyana district of the Free State province towards positive adjustment in the face of poverty and underdevelopment. Positive adjustment, or resilience, is the focus of the International Community-University Research Alliance (ICURA) and International Development Research Centre (IDRC) funded project, called Pathways to Resilience. My study forms part of this broader resilience study. Resilience, or positive adjustment to hardship, can be defined as the capacity of individuals to navigate their way to health-promoting resources that encourage positive adjustment, and the concomitant capacity of the individual’s family, community and culture to provide these health resources and experiences in culturally meaningful ways. Recently, researchers have suggested that the socio-ecological resources that encourage positive adjustment might differ across ecologies. There is little understanding in South Africa of which resources, within specific ecologies, encourage such positive adjustment. My study seeks to address this gap, with specific reference to Basotho youth in the Thabo Mofutsanyana district in the Free State. I used a qualitative phenomenological strategy of inquiry and participatory visual methods to determine the socio-ecological antecedents of the resilience of 130 resilient Basotho youth from rural areas of the Thabo Mofutsanyana district in the Free State province of South Africa. Using Bronfenbrenner‟s Ecological Systems Theory (1979), Sameroff‟s Transactional Model of Development (2009) and Unger’s Social Ecology of Resilience (2011) as framework, I explored the resources underpinning the resilience of my participants. The findings suggest that the resilient Basotho youth in this study were encouraged to adjust well to the risks of poverty and associated threats by making use of social-ecologically accessible resilience-promoting resources. In other words the resilient Basotho youth found resilience-promoting resources in their microsystems (individual, family, school, peers and nature and pets), mesosystems (social interactions), exosystems (community resources like libraries and medical facilities, and role models) and macrosystems (religious beliefs and practices, pastors, and access to information through television, radio, cell phone, and inspirational publications). The conclusion of my study lays emphasis on the interwovenness of socioecological systems in resilience processes: no one system could be sing led out. The entire ecosystem was involved, reciprocally, in providing the participants with resilience-promoting resources. My findings emphasise the importance of mothers, grandmothers, school and educational resources, religious beliefs and practices, and access to information (through the use of television, radio, computer and inspirational literature) for Basotho youth in the Thabo Mofutsanyana district, but do not suggest that these are the sole pathways to their resilience. Continued research in other parts of South Africa, with additional groups of youth, is needed to reach a comprehensive understanding of the socio-ecological antecedents of resilience among South African youth. / MEd, Learner support, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2012

These two mixed method studies are among the first to focus on resilience among Canadian Aboriginal (i.e., First Nations, Métis, and Inuit) youth living in out-of-home care. The first study was quantitative and consisted of cross-sectional and longitudinal components. For the cross-sectional investigation, the participants consisted of 510 First Nations (237 females, 273 males aged 10-16 years), 39 Métis (15 females, 24 males aged 10-16 years), and 10 Inuit young people (2 females, 8 males aged 10-16 years) who were drawn from an ongoing study of young people in out-of-home care in Ontario collected during 2007-2008. The second Canadian adaptation of the Assessment and Action Record (AAR-C2-2006; Flynn, Ghazal, & Legault, 2006) from the ongoing Ontario Looking After Children (OnLAC) project was used to collect data. The criterion variables were the young person’s self-esteem, score on a suicidality index, educational performance, pro-social behaviour, and positive emotional and behavioural development. The predictor variables included the young person’s gender, ethnicity, age, behavioural difficulties, cognitive impairments, attainment of LAC goals, and number of developmental assets. The longitudinal investigation used the same design as study one, but examined the OnLAC data for year eight (2008-2009) in following 260 young people from the sample in study one. The second study was qualitative and involved interviewing 21 First Nations children and adolescents residing in out-of-home care in northern Ontario to obtain their views about resilience and the factors related to the presence or absence of resilient outcomes. The results provided some support for the hypothesis, in that a greater number of developmental assets were related to more positive outcomes on four of the five criterion variables. The results of the focus groups and in-depth interviews suggested that family members, members of the community (coaches), teachers, and child welfare workers, all play important roles in fostering the youths’ success.