The purpose of the current study was to determine the relationship between the PEAK Relational Training System Assessments and the Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement, Third Edition long form in children with autism and other cognitive or language delays. 29 participants were administered the PEAK Relational Training System Battery of Assessments and the Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement. This study sought to extend previous literature examining the validity of PEAK Assessments as compared to previously validated assessments as well as add to the body of literature examining the relationship between academic achievement and language and cognition development. Understanding the interaction between verbal behavior skills, derived relational responding, and academic skills may enable clinicians and educators to serve their learners in a more effective, comprehensive way. The results of this study suggest there is a moderately strong, statistically significant relationship between the PEAK assessments and the Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement Academic Skills Battery Composite (r=0.6675, p<0.0001, R2=.4455) and a strong, statistically significant relationship with the Kaufman Brief Achievement Composite (r=0.7974, p<0.0001, R2=.5611).

Magister Artium (Development Studies) - MA(DVS) / The purpose of this study was to examine the level and extent of community participation in the Danga Ecological Sanitation Project carried out in the Zvishavane district of Zimbabwe. The people-centered approach was chosen as a theoretical background. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to gather relevant information. The results indicated that the community was not fully involved in the ecological sanitation project. As a result, the project had a poor performance record. In the course of this study, political interference in community projects carried out in Zimbabwean rural communities, resulting in the failure to reach the intended beneficiaries, was also noted. Full community participation in community projects may ensure that empowerment and ownership take place. Institutional arrangements, which in most cases impede development, need to be readdressed with clear demarcation of decision-making processes. / South Africa

Intelligence is vital for the outcome of battles. As long as humans wage war, there will be a need for decision support to military and civilian leaders regarding adversaries or potential adversaries. However, the production of intelligence is neither easy nor without pitfalls. There is a need to better understand the predicaments of intelligence analysis. Intelligence is bureaucratically produced as well as socially constructed and created in a distinct cultural context. The ‘institution’ captures these three aspects of influence. Therefore, with a particular focus on military intelligence, this thesis aims to deepen the understanding regarding institutional influence on intelligence assessments. The literature regarding intelligence has grown steadily over the last three decades. However, theories and frameworks aimed to understand the phenomenon are still sparse. This is even more true for literature regarding contemporary military intelligence. This thesis intends to contribute to bridging these research gaps. This is done by studying the Swedish military intelligence institution from several different perspectives: its rules-in-use, shared beliefs, and the incoming stimuli primarily related to conducting threat assessments. More precisely the thesis investigates the use of quantitative methods, doctrines (i.e. the formal rules), and shared beliefs connected to epistemological assumptions and threat assessments. The main contribution of this thesis is that it establishes and describes a casual link between a military intelligence institution and an assessment, by drawing upon rulesin-use and belief systems and their effect on the mental model and consequently the perception of the situation connected to a cognitive bias, and thereby its effect on a given assessment. The thesis makes an effort to render intelligence studies more generalizable, by way of adopting the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework. The metatheoretical language of the IAD is a promising avenue for explaining and describing the institutional influence on intelligence assessments. / Underrättelse är en avgörande komponent för utfallet av väpnad strid. Så länge människor krigar, kommer det att finnas ett behov av beslutsstöd till militära och civila ledare angående dess motståndare och potentiella motståndare. Produktionen av underrättelse är dock inte lätt eller utan fallgropar. Det finns där för ett behov av att öka förståelsen för de predikamenten kopplade till underrättelseanalys. Underrättelse som produkt är byråkratiskt såväl som socialt konstruerad och skapas i ett distinkt kulturellt sammanhang. Konceptet "Institution" kan ses fånga alla dessa tre aspekter. Därför handlar det speciellt om militär intelligens, som handlar om att förstå det institutionella inflytandet på intelligensbedömningar. Den tillgängliga underrättelselitteraturen har ökat stadigt under de senaste tre decennierna. Dock gällande teorier och ramverk på området som syftar till att förstå fenomenet är det emellertid fortfarande lite gjort. Detta gäller i än högre utsträckning för det specifika området modern militärunderrättelse verksamhet. Avhandlingen avser att bidra till att överbrygga dessa forskningsgap. Detta görs genom att studera den svenska militärunderrättelseinstitutionen ur flera perspektiv. Dess regler-i-bruk, delad trossystem/övertygelser samt den inkommande stimuli(data/information) primärt kopplade till hur hotbedömningar genomförs. Mer exakt granskar avhandlingen användningen av kvantitativa metoder, doktriner (dvs de formella reglerna) och delade föreställningar kopplade till epistemologiska antaganden och hotbedömningar. Huvudresultatet av denna avhandling är att det etablerar och beskriver en länk mellan en militärunderrättelseinstitution och de bedömningar som görs. Det går att se en direkt länk mellan de regler-i-bruk samt institutionens trossystem och deras inverkan på individens mentalmodellen. Detta sker genom att de rådande reglerna påverkar förekomesten av kognitivt bias vilket där med påverkar analytikerns uppfattning av en given situation. Avhandlingen har där med en ambition att göra studier i underrättelseanalys mer generaliserbara, genom att applicera och utveckla ramverket för institutionell analys och utveckling (IAD). Det metadeteoretiska språket i IAD är en lovande aveny för att förklara och beskriva det institutionella inflytandet på intelligensbedömningar.

Environmental Impact Assessments ("EIA") have been regulated for the last 12 years in South Africa, initially through the Environment Conservation Act 1989, and since 2006 through the National Environmental Management Act 1998 ("NEMA"). The former applied the standard of "substantial detrimental effect" to the environment in determining whether an authorisation should be granted. NEMA requires the authority to take into account environmental management principles. These principles inter alia require that development must be socially, environmentally and economically sustainable. This is also known as sustainable development ("SD"). Administrative officials tasked with considering EIAs have been given legislative direction with respect to the environmental issues which need to be assessed. They have been given no direction on how to assess socioeconomic issues. Notwithstanding this there have been an increasing number of decisions based on socio-economic factors, notwithstanding that the environmental impacts have been determined to be acceptable. In Fuel Retailers Association of South Africa v Director-General: Environmental Management, Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Environment, Mpumalanga Province and Others the Constitutional court held that SD must be applied by environmental authorities when they consider applications for EIA authorisation. However a careful analysis of NEMA and the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, highlight that our administrators and courts have adopted a one dimensional and ultimately inaccurate interpretation of the application of SD. This is prejudicing the fulfilment of the objective of EIA, namely the determination of the acceptability of a project's environmental impacts. Whilst SD does have a role to play in the EIA process it is more defined, and does not take the central role the Constitutional Court has indicated. The aim of is to determine whether there are adverse impacts associated with a project. If there are, then ordinarily authorisation should be refused. However the authorities are enjoined to go a step further. They must determine whether the identified adverse impacts can be satisfactorily mitigated, and whether any positive socio-economic factors would accrue Page (iii) should the project be authorised. If both are answered in the affirmative, then a positive decision is appropriate. This is the balance which NEMA calls for, and this is the correct application of SD in an EIA. The broader application of SD espoused by the Constitutional Court is achieved not through the environmental authorities in the EIA process alone, but through the constitutional principle of cooperative governance. All authorities with an interest in a particular project must apply the principle of SD within the scope of their administrative functions. The environmental authorities consider the environmental impacts, the planning authorities consider the socio-economic impacts, the agricultural authorities determine the project's impacts on agricultural land, etc. The outcome of their individual decisions can then collectively be assessed to determine whether a project is sustainable or not. There are various measures which can be employed to address the interpretational deficiency which has now manifested. These include improving cooperative governance principles and practices in decisionmaking; undertaking strategic environmental assessments; and a dedicated Sustainable Development Act. / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Centre for Human Rights / unrestricted

Aligning leadership behaviour to organisational values is critically important in ensuring the sustainable success of organisations. In today's fast changing world, executives are under an enormous amount of pressure to manage fierce competition and less predictability in an environment where excellence is significantly more difficult to achieve. Organisational values are the one constant in businesses today. In spite of the challenges that leaders face on a daily basis, they can increase their chance of success by ensuring that the organisational values are entrenched within the organisation. This research is focused on determining whether group coaching can have a positive impact on aligning leadership behaviour to organisational values, whether coaching can increase self-awareness and whether self-awareness correlates to an increase in the alignment of leadership behaviour to organisational values. The degree that leadership behaviour is aligned to organisational values will be assessed through 360-degree feedback assessments. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

This work deals with the possibilities of assessments of mental maps using GIS tools. The main goal is to create a collection of methods to evaluate positioning and relative accuracy of mental maps. The method principles are based on methods of GIS. The emphasis is on maximum versatility and automation the assessment procedure. For all proposed methods there are further discussed the advantages and disadvantages. First part of this work deals with the theme of mental maps, followed by a brief introduction to GIS and their use in the field mental maps. The main part is devoted to the description and practical examples of evaluation methods. At the conclusion there is a discussion of the proposed methods and the appropriateness of use GIS at this issue in general. This work was created under the project No. 26609 called "Mental Maps: Object and Device for Assessment" supported by the Grant Agency of Charles University.

>Magister Scientiae - MSc / MAGISTER SCIENTlAE IN THE FACULTY OF NATURAL SCIENCES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WESTERN CAPE. This thesis focuses on Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA's) as prepared in the Western Cape Province. The thesis attempts to summarise the legal requirements for EIA's and then to analyse two recent assessmentsin the light of the concern raised by Alex Weaver, at the South African chapter of the International Association for Impact Assessment National Conference in 1999, that EIA's~l§_cLI>listoricaily _gisadvantag~and do not give sufficient attention to social impacts. The thesis also attempts to analyse the EIA's and to critically assess whether they comply with the intention of the legal requirements. The applicable legislation and regulations are analysed to determine whether there are sufficient guidelines for practitioners to assessthe socio-economic impacts of development in an equitable manner to the assessmentof the biophysical impacts. It was found that the legislation and the regulations do not provide clear guidance for the consideration of the socia-economic aspects of the environment or impacts in the preparation of EIA's. The EIA's regarding the Relocation Of The Informal Settlement At Stanford and for the Koringberg-Platvlei-MiddelburgWater Supply Pipeline required to provide potable water to rural communities are analysed, as both have socio-economicgoals. In the Stanford case, an informal settlement located on the town's water source has to be relocated to the town, where there is a shortage of land available for development and site-specific impacts on a major employer, with the threat of a potential loss in employment opportunities. In the Koringberg-Platvlei-Middelburg case, the rural community has insufficient potable water and a supply scheme is proposed in a potentially sensitive environment. In order to analyse the two assessments,the ideal EIA and recent trends are first established from literature. Criteria for the assessment of the EIA's are determined and then used to ascertain whether the concern raised by Weaver is correct. In the analysis of the subject EIA's it was found that both address the social issues of concern, albeit without clear guidance from the applicable legislation and regulations. Following on the critical assessmentof the recent EIA's, the thesis provides proposals and stepby-step guidelines for the drafting of EIA's for use by students and inexperienced practitioners in the field of environmental management. Weaver's concern is found to be correct and recommendations are made to adjust the relevant regulations, to give clear guidance for the consideration of seclo-economic concerns in the preparation of EIA's.

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