At Constitutional level, legislation in South Africa entrenches the provision of food and water for all its citizens. In instances where citizens are unable to provide in these basic requirements for themselves, social assistance should be provided to ensure a healthy life for all. In this regard, legislation and Town Planning ordinances and regulations are in place to ensure that built-up environments in which we live and work are healthy and safe for all. However, this study revealed that food provisioning by community gardeners is peripheral in legislation, ordinances and regulations and the practice of urban agriculture is, in many instances, in conflict with the principle of safe and healthy food for all. Community gardeners/urban agriculturists are food farmers within the city who produce food for themselves and others without the checks and balances that are otherwise applicable to food brought into the city from outside. While food production on any piece of available land is vital for these community gardeners for their sustenance and survival, it could become a potential health hazard if no checks or testing measures are in place to ensure that the food being produced is safe for human consumption. The study sought the views and perceptions of community gardeners, residents, Environmental Health Practitioners and Town Planners in the eThekwini Metro region with regards to community gardening/urban agriculture and its impact on food provisioning to citizens. For data collection, a one-on-one interviewing survey method was used with all four groups and results were calculated and converted to average percentages and analysed. The results revealed that there was conflict between legislation, ordinances and regulations regarding the production of food in the built-up environment of the EThekwini Municipality. It was also revealed that there was no cohesive policy to control the production of food produced and sold by community gardeners in the study area. The need for control measures and regulations regarding food production and sale by community gardeners was highlighted. Moreover, where ineffective or none such measures or controls exist, a transparent and consultative process involving all stakeholders must take place in order to establish up viable and sustainable control measures. The people who will be most affected by these rules, namely the community gardeners, should be pivotal role players in the establishment of a sustainable urban agriculture policy. Recommendations to address the problems illuminated by the study are presented. / Environmental Sciences / Ph.D. (Environmental Management)

City marketing is a recently developed process to assist communities in achieving development oriented aims. Changing economic circumstances created such a need and marketing contributed key concepts such as marketing mix and auditing procedures while the process usually occurs within a town planning context. Case studies of applied city marketing reveal predominantly growth related goals, diverse strategies, successes and problems concerning community involvement, equity and effectiveness. South African local authorities have only recently recognised the need for marketing, but tend to limit their actions to promotion. The Verwoerdburg Town Council which successfully established its new central business district, Verwoerdburgstad, through city marketing, has lost its impetus and direction. The Town Council should re-evaluate its goals and methods in order to market itself successfully. / Civil & Chemical Engineering / M.Sc. (Geography)

Observations show that antagonising and depressing relationships among individuals and communities are being experienced. In this regard, against the background of a cursory description of the Hindu life-view, the research examines a Hindu perspective on the pedagogic significance of the relationship structure by means of the phenomenological, exemplaric and historical methods. Since man is always in a situation in the world, which influences his being in the world, an attempt to analyse features of modern society in order to establish their effect on the actualisation of authentic Hindu relationships has been undertaken. Examples of these features are materialism; narcissism and hedonism; egalitarianism and globalism; technocracy; secularism and nihilism; violence and also pessimism. In order to properly understand the Hindu life-view and its relevance with regard to the child's authentic relationships, the relationship between the child and significant others, such as parents, family/relatives, other fellow human beings, educator/teacher, community, himself, objects and God, is presented from a Hindu perspective. An analysis of these relationships reveals that a pedagogic relationship structure can be identified. Relevant components of this structure, such as communication, understanding, trust, authority and religiosity are explained from a Hindu perspective. The thesis demonstrates that authentic (Hindu) relationships make it possible to determine sound education principles. In fact, it is demonstrated that authentic relationships and sound education principles are but two sides of the same coin. As such the vital role, which authentic relationship(s) plays with regard to the actualisation of education principles, is discussed from a Hindu perspective. In concluding the study, several recommendations are made. In the final analysis, it is suggested that poor and meaningless relationships can to a certain extent be seen as a response to disregard particular life-views and focus on the promotion of a global society. Sound relationships, on the other hand, can only be established and maintained by identifying norms and values in a world which has contradictory and confusing values. This means that adults and children ought to obey the demands of their life-view, especially because the relationship structure becomes pedagogically significant in terms of a particular life-view. / Educational Studies / D. Ed. (Philosophy of Education)

The lack of smart resources management and servicescape strategies within the social housing sector in the late 1970s influenced the rise of successive Governments to consider the restructuring of the traditional ‘cumbersome’ Local Authority based structures and approaches toward more ‘enterprise focussed’ management organisations (Sharp & Jones 2012). This change in central Government policy encouraged Local Authorities to assign through outsourcing their housing stock (including associated asset management services) as part of a Large Scale Voluntary Transfer (LSVT) via a process of compulsory competitive tendering to Housing Associations and/or set up Housing Trusts to increase the accountability, efficiency, and effectiveness of social housing and healthcare provision in the local community. As part of this modernisation process, all social housing and community care providers (also known as ‘Registered Social Landlords’ - RSLs) became subject to statutory audits, inspections and regulation, and performance management, to ensure the service quality delivery requirements. More recently, however, changes in the legislative framework have introduced choice-based letting policy, putting the customer first, service delivery and additionally RSLs are required to act as ‘Corporate Social Landlords’. These changes have focused RSLs attention on the need to sharpen service responsiveness, especially in the area of housing maintenance management (DETR 2000). Previous research (Holmes 1985; Spedding 1990; Johnston 1993; Stewart & Stoker 1995; Olubodun 1996, 2000, 2001; Sagoo et al. 1996; El-Haram & Horner 2002; Kangwa & Olubodun 2003, 2005; Boussabaine & Kirkham 2004; Jones & Cooper 2007; Prowle 2009; Babangida et al. 2012) has mainly concentrated on analysing maintenance management factors at the micro level; developing maintenance models and framework design for operational level. However, in the social housing sector, there have been no studies undertaken to date that have been focused on housing maintenance strategies – for example, how this is formulated, the key drivers of change and the impact on customer orientated service delivery. The purpose of this study is to identify the critical factors that drive the decision-making process in order to formulate responsive housing maintenance strategies and to develop a decision support model to improve customer service delivery of social housing provision. Research methodology Through a process of qualitative case study, pilot questionnaire surveys, workshops and qualitative in-depth interviews, the research has identified how the housing maintenance strategies are formulated and how social housing providers could enhance customer service delivery. The study comprised four phases in order to reflect the key objectives of the research. The first phase comprised a review of literature on social housing provision in the UK, identifying relevant changes in the legislative framework, an assessment of the challenges faced by RSLs and the key factors influencing performance of social housing provision. This phase also included undertaking a case study based on five different RSLs to examine the ‘real problems’ as to how and to what extent RSLs have adopted their organisation in order to meet the changes and challenges which they now face. The second phase investigated the key service factors impacting on housing maintenance strategy design and development through the use of a pilot study questionnaire directed to the asset managers (participating in the survey) and also included a selection of end users of the services (tenants). This phase identified the differences between the perceptions of service providers and the expectations of the service users. A key feature of this phase entailed conducting a workshop to disseminate findings of the pilot study. The workshop also formed a basis for ‘in-depth’ discussions for identifying the key factors, their descriptions, their interactions with each other, their inter-relationships with the tenant type, and their combined impact on formulating responsive housing maintenance strategy. The third phase of the study entailed eliciting qualitative data from the participants using the Repertory Grid (RG) ‘in-depth’ interview technique - a psychology tool in order to gain a deeper understanding of the core important ‘constructs’ and sub-constructs, their characteristics, their inter-relationships in the design and development of effective housing asset maintenance strategies. The fourth phase of this study entailed the development of a decision support system and the qualitative validation of the relationships found to exist between the constructs examined in phase three together with the testing of the model over a period of two months with four of the participating social housing providers. Findings The key findings arising from this research suggest that the design and development of value for money maintenance strategies within the public housing sector, are not solely based on physical factors related to the age, condition, location, construction type for example, but rather it was found that the majority of the asset management decisions made, were dependent upon a multivariate of key factors. The study identified 52 key factors, which when grouped together formed seven key cluster (Customer risk factors, Asset manager risk factors, Tenancy risk factors, Neighbourhood and community sustainability risk factors, Financial and economic risk factors, continuous service improvement risk factors and corporate risk factors) which are both ‘unique’ and ‘novel’ and are identified as having a direct influence on the formulation of housing maintenance strategy. These factors should not be considered in isolation and are more akin to the business success factors. The business ‘Balanced Scorecard’ (BSC) was evaluated and used as the basis for a ‘best fit’ model which was tested against four RSL to confirm its validity and its appropriateness. The responses obtained from these trials has indicated that the BSC provides a working tool capable of enhancing RSL organisational capabilities and service delivery effectiveness but also able to incorporate customer views regarding service delivery. This research makes major contributions to the existing limited pool of knowledge relating to strategic asset management within social housing sector and in addition, provides an insight into how housing maintenance strategy can be developed to incorporate feedback from customers (tenants) regarding the quality and responsive service delivery. The research also demonstrates the potential value of the BSC approach to the management tool capable of generating a competitive edge in line with government policy which is currently directed towards encouraging RSLs to adopt a commercial business approach to their operations. The research also demonstrates that the adoption of a decision support system in the form of BSC has the potential to provide useful assistance to RSLs intending to move away from the traditional public sector approaches to management (a more private sector orientated) approach to their operations. The research also shows that asset managers experience little difficulty in understanding the principles behind the BSC approach and its application. In addition, the cascading effect of BSC in housing maintenance strategy means that the strategy can be converted into measurable actions at the operational levels thereby providing a direct link between strategy and its implementation. Due to the absence of suitable benchmarking data, score rating derived from the RG were adopted by asset managers. This approach was found to be highly sensitive in assessing service delivery constructs.

The aim of this study is to find out if there are regional/national strategies, and thus evaluate, how well prepared Sweden is to preserve the unique Swedish natural environments in view of the ongoing climate change. In this work the study is limited to comprise the preservation of protected areas in the Swedish forests. The data collection for the study was done by qualitative interviews to obtain data for the analysis template, where interviews were processed and indexed. The study reveals that the authorities have not come that far. More research is needed with reference to how our unique Swedish natural environments are affected by the changing climate in order to find relevant data for a strategy. In terms of strategy for the preservation of biodiversity, results indicate a slightly better outcome for the authorities.

Syftet med vår essä är att undersöka situationen för fritidshemslärare med utländsk bakgrund inom svensk skola. Vi har fokuserat på situationer då elevers ifrågasättande av att de avviker från normen på grund av att deras hudfärg. Vi har skrivit berättelser som bygger på våra egna erfarenheter ifrån vårt arbetsliv som vi ser som dilemman. Fyra frågeställningar har vi kunnat forma utifrån våra dilemman. För att kunna förstå våra dilemman och besvara våra frågeställningar har vi använt teorier som handlar om dialogiska samtal och erfarenheter, interkulturellt ledarskap, normer, maktperspektiv, svenska styrdokument för skolan och yrkesetik. Vår slutsats är bland annat att genom dialog om våra personliga erfarenheter kan man förstå sig själv och andra bättre. I vår essä framgår det också hur viktiga styrdokumenten är som stöd för fritidshemslärare i sina ageranden som påverkar elevernas sociala utveckling. / The purpose with our essay is to research the situation of leisure-time teachers within the Swedish school that has foreign background, specifically the situation when pupils question them of being different from the norm through the color of their skin. We have written stories that we have based on our own experiences from our professional lives and that we view as dilemmas. We have been able to form four questions from our dilemmas. For us to be able to understand our dilemmas and to answer our questions we have used theories that are about dialogue, experience, intercultural leadership, norm and authority perspective, Swedish regulation documents for school and work-ethics. Our conclusion, amongst other things, is that through dialogue about our personal experiences one can understand oneself and others better. In our essay, it also shows the importance of the regulation documents as support to the leisure-time teachers in their actions that influence pupils`, social developement.

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No description available.

This project examines the safety management of civil aircraft accident investigation authorities in International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Member States, with particular emphasis on the independence of the investigations. The research aims to establish the current level of resources and methodology adopted by Member States’ accident investigation authorities. The output of this work not only identifies the current situation but informs initiatives for some of the States in the process of establishing their investigation capability. ICAO Annex 13 was analysed and found to be based on the principle of independent accident investigations. Also, a four dimensional measuring index (4DMI) has been developed to measure the independence of accident investigations in ICAO Member States. Data were collected from 45 States and are presented in the thesis. As a result of applying the 4DMI to the collected data, the States were ranked according to their scores, and divided into four categories of independence. Analysis of the four categories and the scores from the four dimensions revealed that States approach the concept of investigation independence in different ways; however, there are several practices that are common within the highest independence category and several other practices that are common within the lowest independence category. The research recommends that States should work towards improving their overall investigation independence by implementing the seven identified practices in the High-Independence category and distance themselves from the five practices identified as common in the Low-Independence category.

Internal control is something that’s grown more important for enterprises to keep in mind. The community is increasingly affected by the IT-development which demands a bigger degree of security. Enterprises needs to make sure that their systems are up to date and secure enough to keep it safe from unauthorized to take part of sensitive information. Internal control can exist in a major part of the work. If an enterprise have a goal for no harm or serious injury at work, internal control is necessary to reach that goal. The purpose for this essay is to examine how five different departments of Trafikverket practices internal control. How internal control is described. How the guidance from the managements is described and how it reaches the rest of the enterprise. This will lead to a proposal of improvement of the internal control at Trafikverket. We focus our frame of reference on the COSO-model and its five components. The components included in the COSO-model are control environment, risk valuation, control activities, information and communication and monitoring. The essay is a case-study of Trafikverket. We have chosen a qualitative method and interviewed five respondents from the different departments on Trafikverket. The respondents we interviewed works with internal control in their everyday work or have a god insight in the subject. We used a semi structured interview guide with questions based on the COSO framework. The results from our study shows that it exist big variations between how the departments work with internal control. It emerged that there are new guidelines for how the work should be done. This makes it necessary with education to implement the new ways to work. How the departments use the COSO-model varies. Some of them have incorporated the model in their new ways to work others have never heard of it. The conclusion of our study shows that the COSO-model and it´s components contribute to a functioning internal control. Implementing the components is important and the most important feature to good internal control is the corporate management. Education within the enterprise is the most effective way to inform the staff about the model and to implement it. / Intern kontroll är något som blir allt viktigare för organisationer att ha koll på. Samhället påverkas allt mer av IT-utvecklingen vilken ställer krav på en viss grad av säkerhet. Organisationer måste försäkra sig om att deras system är tillräckligt säkra för att inte obehöriga ska komma åt känslig information. Intern kontroll kan finnas i en stor del av arbetet. Om en organisation har ett mål för att ingen ska skadas allvarligt eller avlida på arbetsplatsen, krävs det interna kontroller för att uppnå målet. Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka hur de olika verksamhetsområdena inom Trafikverket tillämpar intern kontroll. Hur intern kontroll beskrivs i ledningssystemet och hur det når ut i verksamheten. Det ska leda till ett förbättringsförslag av den interna kontrollen hos Trafikverket. Vår teoretiska referensram fokuserar på COSO-modellen och de fem komponenter som ingår i modellen. De komponenter som ingår i COSO-modellen är kontrollmiljö, riskvärdering, kontrollaktiviteter, information och kommunikation samt övervakning. Uppsatsen är en fallstudie på Trafikverket. Vi har valt en kvalitativ metod där vi genomfört fem intervjuer på de olika verksamhetsområdena på Trafikverket. Vi har intervjuat personer som har positioner där de arbetar med intern kontroll eller har god insyn i området. Vi har använt en semistrukturerad intervjuguide där frågorna baserats på COSO:s ramverk. Resultatet av vår studie visar att det finns stora variationer i hur verksamhetsområdena arbetar med intern kontroll. Det framkom att det har kommit nya riktlinjer för hur arbetet ska utföras. Det i sin tur kräver en utbildningsinsats för att implementera arbetssätt. Hur verksamhetsområdena använder COSO-modellen i arbetet varierar. Vissa har det inarbetat i arbetssätten och känner till modellen medan andra aldrig har hört talats om den. Slutsatser av vår studie visar att COSO-modellen och dess komponenter bidrar till en fungerande intern kontroll. Att implementering av komponenterna är viktig och att det viktigaste för bra intern kontroll är företagsledningen. Utbildning inom organisationen är det effektivaste sättet att informera de anställda och implementera modellen.