I am submitting this thesis to the Faculty of Law, the University of Ottawa in fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in August 2016. The thesis examined the issue of land-grabbing through an environmental justice lens. The thesis first reviewed the concept of environmental justice and the threats that land-grabbing by powerful transnational corporations pose to subsistence communities in Africa. Additionally, this study investigated the adequacy of international guidelines to regulate against land-grabbing, including the Minimum Human Rights Principles, the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure, and the Principles for Responsible Agricultural Investments. Using Cameroon as my case study, the study also examined the adequacy of Cameroon’s land tenure rules and environmental impact assessment (EIA) system to protect vulnerable communities against land-grabbing. Drawing on examples from Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, and Uganda, this thesis argues that subsistence communities who failed to have their customary land rights formalized or failed to adequately participate in environmental decision-making end up dispossessed of their means of surviving and thriving. There were three key findings: first, international guidelines regulating against global land-grabbing lack the binding force to coerce host states to take the necessary action to enforce the guidelines and, hence promote responsible agricultural investments. Next, the land rights of subsistence Cameroonians are not formally recognized under Cameroon`s land tenure system, making it difficult for vulnerable populations to contest these allocations or receive compensation in the event of expropriation. Thirdly, EIA follow-up in Cameroon is driven entirely by the investor: the EIA system does not encourage a joint follow-up activity initiated by all groups of stakeholders involved in EIA. Without an independent environmental oversight body that can provide expert evaluation and monitor the Cameroon government and (agricultural) corporations, there is no guarantee that proposed mitigation measures will be translated into specific actions by Herakles Farms. Based on the evaluation results, the following recommendations are made to the Cameroon Government to promote environmental justice in communities that are vulnerable to land-grabbing: (1) formalize customary land tenure, (2) promote environmental contracting; (3) encourage sustainability assessments.

The aim of this study was to undertake a comparative analysis of numeracy performance of Grade 3 learners in the urban and rural primary schools. A secondary analysis of the Systemic Evaluation (SE) survey data that was conducted by the Department of Education in South Africa in 2001 at the Foundation Phase (Grade 3) level of the schooling system was done. It focused on numeracy achievement data and explored the relationship between achievement and gender, age, location, home language and a number of identified equity indicators. The equity factors were explored further with a view to predict learner performance in numeracy. The findings of the descriptive analysis showed that the overall performance in numeracy of Grade 3 learners in rural schools compared to their counterparts in urban schools was not satisfactory. From the exploratory analysis a few of the equity variables (e.g. language, funding, LTSM) were found to have an effect on learner performance in numeracy by location of the school. Only two variables, namely home language (HL) and the number of books in the learner’s home, selected as home background equity factors could be used to predict numeracy performance in the final logistic regression model. The variables in the final model that accounted for pedagogical equity factor variables were availability of computers for teaching, inadequate physical facilities, availability of numeracy reference materials, calculators and others like equipment in the classroom, for example an OHP available for teaching. Copyright / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Curriculum Studies / unrestricted

A case study of FBAs conducted by school-based teams analyzed 26 complete FBAs from rural LEAs trained by a university-based PBIS project staff. Interviews and observations were more often used than instruments/procedures. School teams initiated FBAs quicker but took longer to complete than did independent consultants. Researchers and practitioners will identify essential FBA components; how FBAs can be analyzed per these components; describe study results; and, discuss implications for research and application.

The marketing of personnel assessment services by a variety of individuals and groups has developed into a highly competitive, somewhat unstable, and unusually controversial major American merchandising effort. This study contains a review of the promotional materials and activities of several commercial assessment organizations. Emphasis has been placed upon various "scientific breakthroughs" in the field, including, when possible, the descriptive as well as the predictive utilities that are claimed to result from their use. Three procedures were studied under actual industrial conditions, using tenure and productivity measures as criteria. None of the procedures was found to be significantly predictive in this instance.

Background: Developing and maintaining software is resource expensive. Therefore many organizations and practitioners use Open Source Software(OSS) in commercial development to minimize resource expense. But, adopting OSS mandates the organizations and practitioners to assess and monitor the OSS for updates from the community. Previous literature proposes many assessment frameworks. Many are non-automated and use complex attributes that require a steep learning curve for practitioners to understand. The OSS assessments and monitoring choke the agility of the team and delay their time to market. Practitioners need automated quick assessments with easy-to-understand attributes to assist them during OSS adoption. After adoption, monitoring and upgrading OSS can be challenging. Therefore, organizations need automatic OSS monitoring and upgrading solutions capable of checking community updates for the OSS and upgrade the internally hosted OSS if the update is compliant automatically. Objectives: The objective of our thesis is to automate OSS assessments and monitoring using OSS assessment attributes that are easily understood by the practitioners. Methods: We performed a design science research at City Network to understand OSS assessments and monitoring in organizations and identified the attributes used by the practitioners. Additionally, we identified the attributes from the previous literature that were relevant for practitioners. Following the identification, we constructed an automated solution for OSS assessments and monitoring that was accepted by City Network. To evaluate the generalizability of our automated solution, we conducted interviews with practitioners outside City Network. Results: Our automated solution was praised for its ease of use and easy-to-understand attributes. Practitioners wanted their customizations on our automated solution with additional features and attributes to fully automate their OSS assessments. But our OSS monitoring and upgrading solution was criticized for lack of rigor in assessing an update. But, its program flow and usage at scale were appreciated by practitioners. Conclusions: Our automated solution was effective in automated assessing OSS before adoption. But, it was not capable of automating OSS monitoring and upgrading. With that said, the problem of OSS assessments and monitoring is relevant for many organizations and practitioners. Therefore, such research is essential to improve and streamline OSS adoption for organizations and practitioners. Additionally, it is worthwhile to research more OSS attributes that are relevant and easy to understand for the practitioners.

There are numerous problems in the world that need to be dealt with in order to achieve sustainable development. The energy system has significant negative impacts on many of these problems, and there is a need for a transition towards more sustainable energy. Sweden has already started this transition and is using large amounts of renewable energy. However, within the transport sector and the manufacturing sector in particular, large amounts of fossil fuels are still used. Biogas is one alternative that can help solve several sustainability problems and that could be part of a future more sustainable energy system. However, it is not certain what biogas is most suitable to be used for. The aim of this thesis is to investigate how biogas should be used in a future more sustainable energy system, by answering three research questions: 1) In what ways can biogas be used in a more sustainable energy system? 2) How can we assess whether biogas is suitable in a specific context? and 3) What determines whether it is easy or difficult for a user to start using biogas? These questions are explored in a Swedish context using four appended articles, which are based on two collaborative projects using a combination of workshops, literature reviews and interviews. Biogas can be used for heat, electricity or fuel in the manufacturing or transport sector. In Sweden, heat and electricity are mainly of interest for smaller production scales, while production on larger scales will likely be dominated by upgrading mostly to CBG but also to LBG. CBG can be used for less energy-intensive purposes, such as cars or buses, while the growing interest in LBG in Sweden may open up new market segments for biogas which are more energy-intensive, such as heavy trucks or shipping, or in geographical locations that are further away from the site of production. Several sustainability assessment methods exist that can be used to evaluate whether biogas is suitable in a specific context, such as multi-criteria assessments or scenario analyses. These methods can include a number of different aspects that are relevant to biogas use, such as GHG emissions, safety issues, and the vitality of the surrounding region. In order to introduce biogas, six main factors were identified that can make this easier or more difficult: technical maturity, tank volume, distance between the producer and the user, scale of energy use, policies and costs, and strategies of individual organizations. Overall, the rise in LBG production creates new opportunities for biogas use in both geographical and usage areas that did not previously use biogas. There is no simple answer to what biogas should be used for in the future – rather, this depends on the circumstances. It is also possible that the usage areas that are most suitable now for biogas might not be the most suitable areas in the future, depending on developments within, for example, the electricity system and hydrogen. However, CBG and LBG are likely to dominate biogas production in Sweden until then.

Magister Pharmaceuticae - MPharm / Medicines registration decision-making and regulatory best practice involve transparent and consistent rule making and processes with publicly available published assessment decisions and reports (Kaine, 2020). Publication of information relating to evaluation of medicines in the form of Public Assessment Reports (PARs) is one way of ensuring transparency in medicines registration decision making. It is however not clear whether National Medicines Regulatory Authorities (NMRAs) in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region are in a position to generate or even publish such PARs / summary basis for registration of medicines. Objectives: The study investigated transparency in medicines registration decision-making processes for NMRAs within the SADC region. Specifically, the availability or non-availability of PARs / Summary basis for registration of medicinal products. To establish if all SADC NMRAs have legislative frameworks for regulating medicines and to investigate the sources of funding for SADC NMRAs. Methods: A cross-sectional exploratory descriptive study design with qualitative techniques by questionnaire as a data collection tool was used. Questionnaires were sent via email to senior members / key informants of 11 regulatory authorities belonging to SADC. Trend analysis was conducted based on the emerging themes from questionnaire response. Results The study revealed that currently five (5) NMRAs are operating as semi-autonomous agencies namely: BOMRA, MCAZ, PMRA, SAHPRA and TMDA .While NMRC, DNME of Angola, ACOREP of DRC and DNF of Mozambique are functioning within their respective Ministries of Health Departments. Furthermore, all NMRAs have a legislation framework governing the regulation of medicines in their respective jurisdictions. However, DNME of Angola’s legal framework is not yet officially formalised and as such, they follow a Presidential decree enacted in 2010. Four (4) of nine (9) NMRAs (44 %) reported to have more than 20 internal assessors / evaluators. This indicates a significant milestone for SADC NMRAs in terms of capacity building within the region. The study findings indicated that the SADC NMRAs are receiving funding from multiple sources ranging from a minimum of one to maximum of four funding sources. There were only two NMRAs, MCAZ and PMRA, that were not receiving funding from their governments. The study results further indicates that only TMDA is able to generate and publish PARs amongst SADC NMRAs. Conclusions: The findings in this study suggest that the majority of NMRAs within SADC are not yet matured as compared to countries in the developed world such as the US, Europe, Canada and Australia. It can also be concluded that for SADC NMRAs to be efficient and responsive, they will require massive financial resources. For example, the budget for a matured NMRA such as the US Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) for the 2019 financial year was estimated at US$ 5.7 billion. Literature further indicates that publication of the summary basis of approval or PARs is a norm for mature NMRAs and acts as a tool for regulatory authorities to build and establish confidence in their review processes and provides assurance regarding safety of medicines. The study results indicate that TMDA is publishing PARs or summary of grounds on which approvals are granted. This demonstrates a significant level of transparency in the TMDA medicines registration processes and therefore other SADC NMRAs can benchmark with TMDA to implement this key parameter.

Magister Commercii (Industrial Psychology) - MCom(IPS) / This study investigated development centres as a method to improve the generalised self-efficacy of university graduates. This research was motivated by the various challenges graduates face in order to successfully transition into the world of work. To reach employability, graduates face high unemployment rates, inequality, a slow growing economy, high employer expectations, and a skills mismatch, all of which impacts their self-efficacy, performance and motivation levels. The sample population for this research included Industrial Psychology graduates at a select university in the Western Cape, South Africa (n=17). A quasi-experimental methodology was implemented where an intervention group (n=7) and a control group (n=10) were taken through a development centre approach. The primary research objective was to identify whether the generalised self-efficacy of graduates can be positively affected by a development centre approach in the short-term and long-term.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceived impact of spiritual consciousness on leadership performance. The assumptions of several leadership theories were discussed in relation to spirituality and performance. The leadership qualities associated with performance were highlighted and evaluated. The present study was conducted with ten high performing leaders of private-sector organisations in Johannesburg, South Africa. Qualitative analysis of quantitative and qualitative data was performed. Psychometric assessment results were interpreted and evaluated, semi-structured interviews were conducted and 360 degree questionnaires were administered with the intent to evaluate leadership behaviours impacting on performance. The first part of the interview consisted of a section allowing the participant to tell a story of how their career developed over time. The second part of the interview contained questions pertaining to leadership, the qualities, characteristics and behaviours of successful leaders and those qualities and characteristics that have resulted in their own success followed by questions pertaining to the participant’s perception of spirituality, their experience of spirituality and the perceived link to performance, and lastly their view on spiritual leadership and the impact thereof on performance. The findings suggest that leaders who demonstrate spiritually conscious behavioural traits will likely be regarded as high performing leaders. The relationship between spiritual consciousness and leadership performance was described in detail and recommendations were made for the the implementation of a spiritual consciousness model in the selection of leaders. Confirmative empirical studies with a larger sample are needed to support the findings and to further explore this interesting phenomenon. / Psychology / Ph. D. (Consulting Psychology)

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the United States. COPD is of particular concern in certain sectors of the country, including Central Appalachia where our clinic is located. Assessing patients with COPD presents many challenges as symptoms range from those considered "typical" such as shortness of breath and sputum production to those less often identified like anxiety and social isolation. We conducted a pilot study comparing physician standard assessment of COPD to patient self-assessment using the COPD Assessment Test (CAT). The CAT is an eight-item questionnaire that measures the impact COPD has on an individual patient’s well-being and daily life. Based on our small sample size, physicians tend to underestimate the impact of COPD on a patient’s daily life. This discrepancy did not differ significantly by year of residency. Potential clinical impact of these findings include the need for more formalized and frequent patient self-assessment of disease burden as well as increased COPD assessment training within the residency curriculum.