Staging a crowdsourcing challenge includes opening up your organization to the outside. When doing so, some organizations choose to collaborate with an existing platform owner. This may establish new relationships and opportunities for learning. This research aims to investigate the set of learnings and adjustments that occur between the seekers and platform owners in the challenge process. To do this, a qualitative study in the form of semi-structured interviews, with five seekers, two platform owners, and two specialists in the field, was conducted. Our findings indicate various learnings and adjustments for seekers and platform owners. Seekers learn and adjust by defining the challenge properly, becoming more independent in running challenges, changing their internal culture, and accepting new intellectual property insights. Platform owners learn and adjust by listening carefully to understand the seekers’ goals and by implementing transparency in their way of working. We conclude that through implementing these learnings and adjustments, seekers and platform owners collaboratively gain more confidence and become better at running challenges.

Aflatoxin is a poisonous mold that has spread around the world, posing a threat to food security and the agricultural economy. A total of 4,5 million people are in danger of being exposed to aflatoxins on a long-term basis around the world. Acute toxicity is caused by consuming significant amounts of toxins in a short period of time, which can lead to death in the worst cases, whereas chronic toxicity is caused by consuming small quantities over a longer period of time, which can lead to low birth weight, immunosuppression, restricted growth in children, and liver cancer in the worst cases. The occurrence of aflatoxins in West Africa was recognized, studied, and investigated in this paper based on a literature review. The findings demonstrate that large levels of aflatoxins have been found in West African raw materials and food and the human body. Children under the age of five, pregnant women, and breastfeeding mothers are the most vulnerable to aflatoxins. Furthermore, the findings reveal that the majority of the population is unaware of aflatoxins and its health implications. Inadequate governmental systems, low societal development, lack of access to health care, a low educated population, climate variability and climate change, high levels of illiteracy, and a lack of laboratories are only a few of the many obstacles that the region has in limiting aflatoxins concentrations. Sorting procedures, the use of tarpaulins, and seminars have all helped raise awareness and knowledge and reduce contamination and consumption of aflatoxin-contaminated foods. This study argues that a multi-sectoral strategy is needed to promote food security and local education. Increased limitations and regulations and higher standards may be able to help limit aflatoxin contamination and exposure.

<p>  </p> <p>Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is a well-known strategy used to improve business and manufacturing operations. Even with the attractive benefits it can provide, many companies struggle to successfully implement PLM solutions. This study proposes that this is due to a lack of knowledge on the critical barriers that affect the implementation of PLM solutions, and that reliance on the opinions of PLM professionals alone are not enough to create a successful implementation plan. This study addresses these issues with following research questions, what are the barriers to PLM implementation and is there a difference between those identified in literature and those confirmed by professionals, is there a difference between barrier impact rankings, based on professional opinion and those determined utilizing the DEMATEL method, and what are the critical barriers determined using the DEMATEL method supplemented by the MMDE algorithm? To answer these questions a series of two surveys were sent out to professionals in the PLM space with experience working on PLM implementation projects. The first of the two surveys was used to confirm the barriers that exist within the PLM implementation process. The second of the two surveys was used to gather information on the perceived impact of barriers and the causal relationships between barriers in the form of relationship matrices. To analyze these matrices the DEMATEL method supplemented by the MMDE algorithm was used.</p> <p>This study did not intend to provide absolute solutions to the critical barriers identified in this study, rather it intended to increase the success rate of PLM implementations by, confirming the barriers identified in the literature, providing information on the relationships between the barriers to PLM solution implementation and determine which of the barriers can be considered critical. Following these results of this study, the DEMATEL analysis method may supplement existing PLM implementation frameworks allowing companies to identify the critical barriers to implementation, allowing for better allocation of resources and ultimately a more successful PLM implementation. </p>

This study investigated the role of academic libraries in implementing research data services, UKZN being the case study. The objectives of the study were to identify the need for research data services among UKZN researchers, to identify the major challenges associated with introducing research data services at UKZN, and to determine the possibility of implementing research data services at UKZN Libraries. The Data Curation Centre Lifecycle model was adopted as a framework for the study as it manages to connect the different stages of research data management. The study took a mixed methods approach of which interviews and a survey were used. A purposive sample was used to select library staff and random sample was drawn from 1341 UKZN academics. From a sample of 1341, 299 was the minimum size recommended by the Raosoft sample size calculator for a 5% margin of error and 95% confidence level. For quantitative analysis, an online questionnaire was administered using Google Forms. A series of questions were formulated for guidance in obtaining answers to the study objectives. Google Forms was used for the analysis while figures and tables were created using Microsoft Excel. Interviews from the library staff were recorded and data from interviews was transcribed into Microsoft Word. The study revealed that UKZN Libraries are still struggling with RDM policy development. The findings of the study revealed that researchers who responded to the study showed a lack of RDM awareness while library staff showed a moderate level of awareness. The study revealed that researchers at UKZN work with different types of data and they use different storage options such as removable storage devices, computer hard drives and cloud services. Although a few researchers have developed data management plans at UKZN, they have not done so because they were mandated by the institution - UKZN has not yet developed DMPs and library staff are not aware which funders require DMPs. The researchers who responded to the study showed interest in different trainings such as, training on data storage, development of DMPs and metadata creation. The library staff were more eager to provide data storage, data archiving and sharing mainly because of the existence of the UKZN data repository (Yabelana). Study recommendations are based on the analysed data. One of the recommendations was that UKZN Libraries should assume a role of being an advisor and trainer for research data services at UKZN.

Education is essential to human development because it provides knowledge and skills that hold great results for economic empowerment, better living and social growth. Parents do their best by engaging in studies for their development and a better future for their children. This research is meant to examine the challenges experienced in combining Parenting and academic life using five social work student-parents who studied in Gavle University. In this study, a qualitative approach, semi-structured interviews were deployed to collect data from five willing social work students at the University of Gävle who juggle parenting with studying. Role theory was used to get the best out of this research endeavour, implying that people occupy different roles daily. The data collected were coded into themes. It is crucial that aside from recommended solution approaches, regular guidance and counselling should be considering as a means to help monitor and supervise the academic progress of studying parents and their children to provide emotional aid, support and assistance wherever needed in the scheme of things.

The aim of the research is to study the integration process of war-displaced adult immigrant students in the Swedish education system, regarding to war-displaced adult immigrant students' points of view to integrate to the Swedish education system and the challenges that war-displaced adult immigrant students faced to achieve the desire of integration. To implement this research study, the researcher used a qualitative research interview method through open-ended interviews with war-displaced adult immigrant students and previous literature research. Therefore, the theory of interest in the research study is empowerment theory and that to study the challenges of war-displaced adult immigrant students from segregation, social exclusion, socioeconomic status, language barriers, and bad relationships with peers. Also, to explore the skills war-displaced immigrant students applied to overcome the obstacles of the integration process into the new education system. In contrast, the researcher would use qualitative research method by semi-structure interview method to conduct the interview and implement the data analysis by different themes and subthemes. Additionally, ethical considerations are considered in the research study, and the rights of the participants are perceived the results are in line with theoretical framework and literature studies. The findings in the research showed, the obstacles of adult immigrant students and the skills they have used to integrate into the new education system for example about, language barriers, lack peer’s interest, staff support and previous knowledge. Keywords: adult immigrant students, integration, challenges, empowerment

Context. Distributed software development becomes increasingly common with the trend of globalization. Scrum, as one of the methods to realize agile, is gradually accepted by more and more people and applied to actual industrial production. Although there have been some successful cases of distributed Scrum team development, the description of these successful experiences may not be exhaustive enough and not applicable to all teams. There is still a great demand for actual industrial case studies, especially related research on specific teams and detailed challenges encountered. In order to enable more distributed scrum teams to better handle various challenges in the development process, further research on the challenges the teams encounter and how to solve, mitigate, and avoid the impact of these challenges is necessary. Objectives. The main objectives of this research are to investigate the challenges faced by distributed Scrum teams in the development process, the factors that cause them, and how to deal with these challenges. Methods. We conducted a systematic literature review and obtained the most common problems encountered by distributed Scrum teams and parts of the factors that caused this problem. On this basis, we conducted case studies on 2 large companies in Asia. We used archived data to know the basic information of the case team and a semi-structured interview was used to understand the problems they encountered and their opinions. Results. During this study we found that the most common challenge encountered by distributed Scrum teams was "Communication among stakeholders". Totally 16 factors were found that could cause this challenge. The two main factors were “Team members have insufficient knowledge or different skill levels” and “Are not familiar with each other or have differences”. And 42 solutions were provided after we integrated the information obtained. Conclusions. We conclude that communication is a matter of great concern, whether in the literature we used or in our case team. The factors and solutions given are only for reference by teams of similar types and development backgrounds. Further researches on other different types of teams and other challenges encountered are also necessary.

Bad weather conditions such as drought have had detrimental effects on the agrarian life of the people in Madziva rural area, Zimbabwe. Due to the unfavorable weather conditions in this area, poverty and unemployment, most men migrated and continue to migrate to the urban areas in search of greener pastures. This research focuses on how these more frequent extreme weather conditions in Madziva, resulting in less predictable seasons, have increased incidences of precarity. This is important as it portrays how the climate has changed, its effect and the anxiety and expectations around it. Furthermore, providing perception of the nature of climate change in the village is important in order to assess the evidence of nature and level of climate change (manifesting through drought). As a result of the uncertainty caused by drought, the migration of men had been rampant in Madziva, and thus the village is characterized by a significant number of female-led households. To understand the social, political and economic dynamics of what it means to survive in a time of drought for ‘fragmented' families, an ethnographic research was conducted in Madziva over two months (14 June 2017 to 15 July 2017) and (10 December 2017 to 11 January 2018) during one of the worst droughts in Zimbabwe. This research follows the everyday lives of eight women and the interactions with 15 more women through focus group interviews in order to understand the strategies used to achieve survival. In this thesis, the results of an ethnography of women's experience of drought particularly in Madziva rural area in Zimbabwe between June 2017 and mid-January to mid-February 2018 are presented. It further explores, the locals' understandings of extreme weather conditions particularly in Madziva rural area and how practices, particularly those linked to gender, are shaped or reinforced. This research found out that the people of Madziva rural area, particularly women are severely affected by drought as compared to men. This is because of the expectations of managing the household and caring for children which requires them to be heavily reliant on natural resources. The reliance on natural resources has been due to the very poor and non-performing Zimbabwean economy, however, these are the resources which become scarce in a time of drought, which exacerbates precarity. Additionally, women in rural areas such as Madziva have less access to critical information on shifts in cropping patterns and weather alerts, and this can be linked to the gendered structure of the village, where men are seen as the principle holders of knowledge of the land. Furthermore, women also have very little power in decision making and access to resources because of the land ownership titles often given to the men of the household. However, with iv the high migration to urban centers, there is a gap that the women of Madziva must navigate and this thesis aims to explore how this occurs. For instance, during the fieldwork, it became evident that irrespective of all these challenges that are caused by drought, women are always expected to make a plan to provide for their families although there is a stiff competition for the remaining natural resources. Women in Madziva negotiated relationships of marginality, responsibility, togetherness and belonging through the ways they experienced the challenges ushered by drought.

Bullying is well known to have harmful effects on child development and mental health, so understanding the underlying factors involved in bullying behaviour is critical (World Health Organization, 2008). In the present study, mental health, parenting challenges, and children’s individual strengths were explored across different types of bullying involvement. In this cross- sectional study involving 91 children between the ages of four to 11 receiving services at a mental health agency, the results indicated significant differences on dependent variables across the four different bullying involvement groups: bully, victim, bully-victim, and non-involved. Children in the bully group were more likely to be experiencing externalizing behaviours and have fewer individual strengths whereas children in the victim group were more likely to be experiencing difficulties with internalizing behaviours and have fewer individual strengths. Children in the bully-victim group were more likely to be displaying externalizing behaviours, come from homes experiencing parenting difficulties, and have fewer individual strengths. In contrast, children who were non-involved in bullying were more likely to have greater individual strengths including stronger peer relations, greater self-expression, able to successfully adapt to change, and have stronger family units. The results of this study highlight the different behaviour patterns across the types of bullying involvement as well as shed light onto the needs and strengths of children accessing mental health services from a community agency.

Thesis (M. A. (Clinical Psychology)) --University of Limpopo, 2019 / Students with albinism experience social and academic challenges in society. These challenges are mainly influenced by their disability. Studies indicate that because they look different from most people they are treated differently and socially excluded and marginalised. Albino individual’ are also murdered in South Africa which is motivated by myths, beliefs and misconceptions in traditional African societies. The Social Model of Disability (SMD) underpinned the study as it is used to explore social experiences in different life contexts. The study used a qualitative approach with an exploratory research design. Purposive sampling was used to select the 18 participants. Thematic Content Analysis (TCA) was used to analyse data collected from the three focus groups. The findings of the study revealed that the social experiences of students with albinism are be difficult. They experience discrimination and stigmatisation from their peers and are often called derogatory names. It was also found that students with albinism have academic challenges because of their impaired vision, lecturers’ negative attitudes and insensitivity towards them. It was also found that the lack adequate assistive devices. Social experiences and academic challenges lead to a self-reported negative impact for instance, depression for these students. Ultimately, more awareness initiatives about the condition are required at the institution in order to improve the experiences of students with albinism.