Due to the unique nature of South African public education, it is not always viable to invest in expensive, high maintenance resources. Out of this context the Media in Education Trust (MIET) sought to provide resources that would meet the need for low maintenance resources, even harnessing the power of the educator as a resource. In 1999 the "Foundations" supplements made their appearance, featuring in certain prominent newspapers. Towards the latter part of 1999 the years work on ''Foundations'' was packaged into the ''Foundations'' pack, which consisted of 2 books and a series of 8 posters. With this in mind this dissertation was initiated by the desire to evaluate the supplement and pack and its usage. The evaluation was narrowed even further by focussing specifically on participants of a workshop held on the usage of "Foundations". The dissertation was aimed at seeing if workshop participants were motivated to use the pack and whether these had become part of their teaching practice. During the course of this research the Centre for Research, Evaluation and Policy at the University of Durban - Westville was commissioned to evaluate two of MIET's projects. The opportunity thus presented itself for the research scope to be expanded. During the course of this research data was evaluated from a MIET workshop at Berea in Durban, a workshop in Vryheid attended and a workshop in Empangeni viewed. The majority of participants viewed the workshops very positively. The questionnaires given to educators at specific schools revealed that the majority of educators are aware of "Foundations" and attempt to utilise it in some form or the other. ''Foundations'' does have a unique place in classrooms throughout South Africa. What exists as an issue is the manner in which it is brought into the fore as a valuable resource. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of Durban-Westville, 2001.

Sustainability, the work of building a world that is ecologically, socially and economically just, is essentially a learning process. To move more effectively toward this goal, a deeper understanding of learning is necessary. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have come to play a significant role within the sustainability project, and thus form the context for much learning toward sustainability. Faith-based organizations (FBOs) are a significant but understudied segment of the NGO family. This research investigates learning among individuals within FBOs doing environmental and development work in Kenya, using the framework of Mezirow’s transformative learning theory. The identity and function of these FBOs is profiled, highlighting the key role churches and faith-based agencies can play in effecting sustainable and holistic change in Global South countries, due to their rootedness in the community, the social capital they help produce, and the respect they receive from local people. Learning for sustainability is examined through interviews with participants from two case FBOs: A Rocha Kenya and Rural Service Programme of the East Africa Yearly Meeting of Friends. Attention to the context these organizations provide for learning highlighted the influence of supportive community, mentor relationships, teamwork, and training and evaluation structures. Learning outcomes covered a broad range of areas, with the highest proportion fitting within environment/conservation (e.g., linking faith and environmental concerns, and agriculture and birding skills) and community work (e.g., relating to people, managing groups, teaching and facilitation) umbrellas. Some transformative learning was experienced, mostly through learning in the instrumental domain. Key learning processes included observation and experience, training, practical application and learning from each other, highlighting the importance of embodied learning processes. Applying learning through action, both at work and in the home and community, was an important expression of learning for participants, though this expression was sometimes blocked by personal and social barriers that prevented the completion of the learning-action cycle.

Travelling wave based fault location techniques work well for line commutated converter (LCC) based high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission lines, but the large capacitors at the DC line terminals makes application of the same techniques for voltage source converter (VSC) based HVDC schemes challenging. A range of possible signals for detecting the fault generated travelling wave arrival times was investigated. Considering a typical VSC HVDC system topology and based on the study, an efficient detection scheme was proposed. In this scheme, the rate of change of the current through the surge capacitor located at each line terminal is measured by using a Rogowski coil and compared with a threshold to detect the wave fronts. Simulation studies in PSCAD showed that fault location accuracy of ±100 m is achievable for a 300 km long cable and 1000 km long overhead line. Experimental measurements in a practical HVDC converter station confirmed the viability of the proposed measurement scheme.

The goal of this thesis is to determine the correlation between the practice of working at home and the theoretical needs of sustainable living. The author presents a brief synopsis of the present theories of sustainability which he then uses as an evaluative backdrop for the study. Urban transport, architectural design and quality of life issues are addressed. The author conducted an extensive literature review, several case studies and a survey. Conclusions drawn from these studies were used to attempt to envision sustainable home working communities. / It was found that sustainability was directly related to whether the home worker telecommutes or operates a home-based business. Home-based business owners continue to be heavily reliant on automobile transportation, while telecommuters make fewer overall trips and travel shorter distances than conventional commuters. Although neither work type demands significant changes to the infrastructure of the typical residence, home-based businesses require more space and more attention to design. Telecommuting has potential adverse side effects of personal isolation and physical strain. To ensure the sustainability of working at home, the practice must be adopted as an integral part of a larger transformation on the scale of the local community.

When faced with a new design problem, Engineers most often tend to rely on their accumulated knowledge of science, mathematics, and appropriate experience to reach suitable solutions. Case-Based Reasoning is a new engineering paradigm that reflects this fact by suggesting solutions to novel problems based on the recall and reuse of specific experiences. Such a paradigm relies on previous successful design solutions that are stored in the form of separate cases in a database. / The aim of this thesis is to develop a process that will provide examples which can be used to set up a database of optimized designs for various electromagnetic devices such as loudspeakers and actuators. Each stored design will represent an optimum solution to a specific set of requirements for an electromagnetic device. These designs will eventually be used by a case-based reasoning system to reach a solution for possible requested future designs. The process will also involve developing a parameterization of a particular class of devices as well as testing optimization processes to be applied to the initial designs in order to ensure that the solutions stored in the case database represent effective and realistic devices which satisfy the requirements. This thesis also presents test results that illustrate how each optimized design conforms to certain requirements set as an input objective.

Patients with haematological diseases are entitled to supportive care. Considering organisational and technological development, support in the form of caring communication provided through the web is today a possible alternative. The aim of this thesis was to examine the usefulness and importance of a web-based counselling service to patients with haematological diseases. The basis for the thesis was a development project funded by the Swedish Cancer Society, which provided an opportunity to offer patients communication with a nurse through a web-based counselling service. Four studies were performed from a patient perspective. Study I had a cross-sectional design, measuring occurrence of anxiety and depression, and these variables’ associations to mastery, social support, and insomnia among patients with haematological diseases. Study II was a qualitative content analysis focusing on conditions for provision and use of the web-based counselling service. Study III used a qualitative hermeneutical approach to focus on patients’ experiences of using the counselling service. Study IV was a qualitative deductive analysis examining how communication within the web-based counselling service can be caring in accordance to caring theory. The results revealed that females of 30-49 years of age are vulnerable to experiencing anxiety. Low sense of mastery and support are associated with anxiety and/or depression. Being able to self-identify the need for support as well as appreciate the written medium are necessary conditions for the web-based counselling service to be used. The counselling service must also be part of a comprehensive range of supportive activities and web-based services to be useful. The main importance of the communication is that the patient’s influence on the communication is strengthened, and that the constant access to individual medical and caring assessment can imply a sense of safety. When patients share their innermost concerns and search for support, nursing compassion and competence can substantiate in explicit written responses. A conclusion is that there is a caring potential in communication within a web-based counselling service. To make this form of communication possible, nurses should take possession of and ensure that this medium for communication is offered to patients. Nurses should also increase their knowledge of caring communication in writing and how this possibly can impact patients.

Feature-based attention refers to the phenomenon that attending to a feature value (e.g., a specific shade of red) enhances the detection of similar feature values (e.g., the same shade of red or other shades of red similar to the attended shade) relative to different feature values (e.g., green) that belong to a different object, and that this facilitation effect can be found across the visual field. In previous studies, the participants’ task was primarily the detection or discrimination of simple features such as orientation, colour or motion. The experiments reported in this thesis investigated whether feature-based attention could also influence the speed and/or accuracy of discriminating alphanumeric stimuli such as letters and numbers. In three experiments, participants saw displays that consisted of a series of stimulus patterns at a central location followed by the appearance of an alphanumeric stimulus at one of two peripheral locations. Experiment 1 tested whether paying attention to a specific orientation in a central stimulus would affect the speed and/or accuracy of identifying a peripheral letter whose principal axis was either the same as or different from the attended orientation of the central stimulus. Experiment 2 changed the peripheral stimulus from a letter to a number. In Experiment 3, a peripheral stimulus occurred randomly on 50% of the trials instead of on 100% of the trials. The results showed that attending to a specific orientation of a central stimulus could affect the processing efficiency of both letters and numbers at a peripheral location when the alphanumeric stimulus occurred on every trial (Experiments 1 and 2), but not when it appeared on 50% of the trials. These results suggest that feature-based attention could influence the identification of alphanumeric stimuli. However, the effect may be quite short-lived.

The Department of Building and Housing is currently developing a performance framework that will, if adopted, provide a compulsory methodology for performance based fire engineering designs to prove compliance with the fire safety requirements of the New Zealand Building Code. The conceptual performance framework currently includes eight design fire scenarios, fire loads for particular building uses, and tenability criteria for the life safety of occupants. As the level of fire safety within the Code is not explicit, the Department of Building and Housing determined that the performance framework for fire should ensure buildings are designed and built to provide the same level of safety as if they complied with the current Compliance Document for New Zealand Building Code Fire Safety Clauses, C/AS1. This work analysed 12 buildings with a range of uses, which comply with the current C/AS1, using the conceptual performance framework to provide a risk comparison for life safety. Accepted, previously established calculation and modelling methods were used to test the case buildings to the performance framework. None of the buildings met the pass criteria proposed for life safety. Consequently, to comply with the performance framework, a building would be required to be designed to a higher level of safety than is currently accepted to meet code. This shows the current proposal provides a more onerous design regime for fire safety for buildings than the current C/AS1. The results of this research show the conceptual performance framework for fire safety is not ready to be included into New Zealand building regulations in its present form. Furthermore, protection from fire for primary structural members and systems, to protect against building collapse, and tenability criteria and fire fighting access for fire fighters needs to be developed and included in the framework.

This thesis project has been performed at (and for) a company named Strödata. The purpose of the project has been to perform a risk analysis on Strödata’s web based business system, and specifically analyze how access to the business system through smartphones would affect the risks posed to the system. This has been done to help decide if smartphone access should be enabled. An implementation of a web application which is suited for use on a smartphone has also been developed, as a proof-of-concept, to grant access to a limited part of the business system. The method used to perform the risk analysis has been CORAS, as presented by Braber et al in [1]. CORAS is a risk analysis method designed with IT-systems specifically in mind. The method is divided into seven steps. The new web application is an ASP.NET MVC3 site that uses JavaScript, jQuery and Ajax-JSON. The risk analysis showed, among other things, that the benefits of enabling smartphone access to the business system are larger than the risks it introduces. Smartphone access also opens up many new possibilities to implement interesting new features or improve old ones. The risk analysis also showed that there are risks to the system that need to be dealt with. For these, risks treatments were identified to lessen their probabilities and/or their consequences should they occur. Some treatments were completely successful in eliminating the risks they treat, others were not. However, the treatments that were not completely successful did reduce the risks far enough that perhaps they should be re-evaluated as un-/acceptable. The conclusions that can be drawn from this thesis project are that although enabling smartphone access to the business system introduces new risks to the system, the access also reduces certain risks. How costly the new risks are and how much the access reduces risks varies from company to company and from system to system. For Strödata, the reduction to certain risks was large enough to outweigh the new risks that would be introduced. Regarding the possibility to implement smartphone access to the business system, it is possible using more modern technologies, methods and frameworks; such as those mentioned above.

This research has a primary focus on the middle school setting and how schools, students, and art educators might benefit from an interdisciplinary art curriculum. In this thesis I outline how cross-curricular inclusions in art lessons have the potential to be a fantastic advocacy tool for fine arts departments. I also investigate the differences between interdisciplinary inclusions in the visual art classroom and arts integrated school models as well as the beneficial relationship that can exist between these two pedagogical approaches. Additionally, I examine through literary review and curriculum development, some of the positive and negative influence in academic subject areas and more importantly art disciplines. My final and primary aim in examining various methods of cross-curricular inclusion is to shed light upon the immense potential for student development via dynamic interdisciplinary art curriculum.