The purpose of this qualitative case study was to gather the perspectives of English as a Second Language (ESL) students to determine their views regarding content delivery and assessments in their content’ specific classes. This case study is based on the concept that students’ perspectives should be considered when planning content delivery and assessments for ESL students at Constitution College (pseudonym), a 4-year college in South Florida. ESL college students receive content and assessments in the same manner as native English - speaking students at Constitution College after completing an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) program. Even after this program, some still had trouble with reading comprehension. For students to be successful in their content-specific classes, they must understand the subject matter. Individual interviews were used to gather the perspectives of 13 ESL college students enrolled in EAP courses, selected through purposeful sampling. The questions related to connections between content delivery, assessments, and academic struggles in content-specific classes. As data were collected, they were organized according to recurring themes, common patterns, and categories. The findings suggested that colleges need to ensure that instructors are fully prepared to provide quality instruction during EAP courses for ESL students. If this suggestion is enacted, these ESL students will also benefit as they will be able to use English for academic and social mobility change. The findings will also provide information specific to Constitution College that will add to the body of knowledge regarding the perspectives of ESL college students in the United States.

The study aimed to investigate the trends and patterns in Requests for Proposals (RFPs) for Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) services from ICAS Southern Africa. The sample was forty RFPs from the public and private sectors. The sample of forty was drawn from the ICAS Southern Africa archives of RFPs for 2012 to 2016, using probability sampling. The quantitative research approach was followed, using document analysis design. The researcher utilised the content analysis technique to extract the information from the RFPs and quantify it into a coding sheet. The findings reflect changes in requests for EAP services by corporate clients in South Africa over the past five years. There was a trend towards the integration of services from the EAP, Health and Wellness, Work-life and other related fields. The service delivery models requested also showed changes with electronic services emerging strongly, which presents an opportunity for the three fields to further integrate and provide holistic services. / Mini Dissertation (MSocSci)--University of Pretoria, 2017. / Social Work and Criminology / MSocSci / Unrestricted

EAP, as part of the organizational Human Resource Management services, assists employees in dealing with challenges that affect their productivity at work. It is offered according to different approaches, depending on the size, availability of resources and nature of the organization. Employee Assistance Programmes (EAPs) provide services designed to help employees, managers and organizations meet life challenges and remain healthy, engaged, and productive. However, the services that an EAP offers in an organization need to be marketed to its users. This allows the users, who are the employees of that particular organization, to understand and familiarize themselves with those services. Various strategies are used to market EAP. However its influence differs from one organization to another. The study was conducted in the public service to determine the effect of marketing strategies by EAPs during the developmental and implementation phases. More importantly, this study seeks to examine the most effective strategies for EAP marketing in the public service by means of the following objectives:- • A description of marketing strategies for EAPs from a theoretical point of view; • An exploration of marketing strategies which have been applied in the public service by means of an empirical study. • Formation of guidelines on marketing strategies that may ensure effective marketing during the developmental and implementation phases of EAP. The literature study outlines the processes and guidelines for implementation of the EAP during the developmental phases. This includes needs assessment, management consultation, EAP mainstreaming and EAP launch and management training. There is a direct link between the implementation plan for EAP and the marketing strategies to be employed. The main reason for conducting this study is vi therefore to try to align the implementation plan for the EAP with the relevant strategies to be employed, for the benefit of the public service. The empirical findings obtained from a sample of EAP practitioners and EAP heads in the public service have established the main purpose of the study, which will be conducted by following the mixed method research approach. The researcher applied the mixed method approach to find the general understanding by EAP practitioners of the subject being investigated and to verify such information with EAP heads in the public service. Data were presented by means of exact figures gained from precise measurement and the themes in chapter 3. This methodology was aimed at exploring the effective marketing strategies for EAP during the developmental and implementation phases in the public service (Gauteng). The findings of the study and the analysis revealed the effective strategies that should be employed by practitioners when EAP is introduced into a specific public service department to ensure effective and efficient use of its services. The study also formulated guidelines on the effective use of the EAP in the public service. The research conclusions and recommendations served as a basis for the development of a guideline to effectively market the EAP services in the public service during the developmental and implementation phases. / Dissertation (MSW)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / lmchunu2014 / Social Work and Criminology / unrestricted

Gestures and metaphors are important mediational tools to materialize abstract conventions in the conceptual development process (Lantolf and Thorne, 2006): metaphors are used in the educational setting to simplify abstract knowledge for learners (Ungerer and Schmidt, 1996; Wee, 2005); gestures, through visual representation, can "provide additional insights into how humans conceptualize abstract concepts via metaphors" (Mittelberg, in press, p. 23).This study observed and videotaped four composition instructors and 54 ESL students at an American university to probe how their metaphorical expressions and gestures in a variety of naturally occurring settings, such as classroom teaching, student-teacher conferencing, peer reviewing and student presentations, represent the abstract rhetorical conventions of academic writing in English. By associating students' gestures with the instructors' metaphors and gestures, this study found evidence for the assistive roles of metaphors and gestures in the learning process. The final interviews elicited students' metaphors of academic writing in English and in their first languages. The interviewees were also asked to reflect upon the effectiveness of the metaphors and gestures they were exposed to.This study confirmed the roles of gestures in reflecting the abstract mental representation of academic writing. Twelve patterns were extracted from the instructors' data, including the linearity, container, building, journey metaphors and others. Of these twelve patterns, six were materialized in the students' gestural usage. The similarity of gestures found in the instructors' and students' data provided proof of the occurrence of learning. In the elicited data, students created pyramid, book, and banquet metaphors, to highlight features of academic writing in English and in their first languages. These new metaphors demonstrate students' ability to synthesize simple metaphors they encountered for a more complex one, which is more significant in the learning process. The interviews suggest that metaphors are better-perceived and more effective in relating abstract knowledge to the students. Gestures were not judged by the students to be helpful. This could result from the fact that gestures, other than emblems, are often understood unconsciously and are naturally used to provide additional information to the verbal utterance rather than replacing speech, which is more prominent perceptually and conceptually.

Ionic polymer metal composite (IPMC) is used in various bio-inspired systems, such as fish and tadpole-like robots swimming in water. The deflection of this smart material results from several internal and external factors, such as water distribution and surface conductivity. IPMC strips with a variety of water concentration on the surfaces and surface conductivity show various deflection patterns. Even without any external excitation, the strips can bend due to non-uniform water distribution. On the other hand, in order to understand the effects of surface conductivity in an aquatic environment, an IPMC strip with two wires connected to two distinct spots was used to demonstrate the power loss due to the surface resistance. Three types of input signals, sawtooth, sinusoidal, and square waves, were used to compare the difference between the input and output signals measured at the two spots. Thick (1-mm) IPMC strips were fabricated and employed in this research to sustain and drive the robot with sufficient forces. Furthermore, in order to predict and control the deflection, researchers developed the appropriate mathematical models. The special working principle, related to internal mobile cations with water molecules, however, makes the system complicated to be modeled and simulated. An IPMC strip can be modeled as a cantilever beam with loading distribution on the surface. Nevertheless, the loading distribution is non-uniform due to the non-perfect surface metallic plating, and four different kinds of imaginary loading distribution are employed in this model. On the other hand, a reverse-predicted method is used to find out the transfer function of the IPMC system according to the measured deflection and the corresponding input voltage. Several system-identification structures, such as autoregressive moving average with exogenous (ARX/ARMAX), output-error (OE), Box-Jenkins (BJ), and prediction-error minimization (PEM) models, are used to model the system with their specific mathematic principles. Finally, a novel linear time-variant (LTV) concept and method is introduced and applied to simulate an IPMC system. This kind of model is different from the previous linear time-invariant (LTI) models because the IPMC internal environment may be unsteady, such as free cations with water molecules. This phenomenon causes the variation of each internal part. In addition, the relationship between the thickness of IPMC strips and the deflection can be obtained by this concept. Finally, based on the experimental results above, an aquatic walking robot (102 mm × 80 mm × 43 mm, 39 g) with six 2-degree-of-freedom (2-DOF) legs has been designed and implemented. It walked in water at the speed of 0.5 mm/s. The average power consumption is 8 W per leg. Each leg has a thigh and a shank to generate 2-DOF motions. Each set of three legs walked together as a tripod to maintain the stability in operation.

This research project was concerned with the description of the Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) mainly in the South African mining industry. The focus was on the impact of legislation on the practice of EAP in the South African mining industry. The researcher used a qualitative approach in this applied research study. The researcher employed a phenomenological strategy within the exploratory study. This was done through the utilization of semi-structured interviews. The researcher first looked at the evolvement of EAP as a field of practice, following by a discussion of the current state of the EAP in the South African mining industry. The researcher continued by discussing relevant pieces of legislation that have a direct influence on the practice of EAP in the mining industry. The second part of the project was the empirical study. Ten respondents were drawn through the process of purposive sampling. The researcher mainly dealt with the views of four Human Resource practitioners and six EAP practitioners in the mining industry. Through this exercise, the researcher looked at what the practitioners’ views were on the role of legislation as specifically to two issues. The first was the general provision of EAP services. The second was the stipulation of the legislation according to them, pertaining the practicalities of the provision of the service. The researcher’s conclusions regarding impact of legislation on the practice of EAP in the South African mining industry can be presented in the following manner: • Legal provisions have played a significant role towards the development of the field of EAP in general; • Other implications have been difficult to implement for mostly two main reasons. The first is that they are too general and therefore are seen to mean different things to different people. The second is that the people who matter most do not know them. These are either human resources practitioners, occupational social workers and/or EAP professionals or union and/or employee representatives. / Dissertation (MSW)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Social Work and Criminology / unrestricted

Please read the abstract in the dissertation Copyright / Dissertation (MSW)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Social Work and Criminology / unrestricted

This term project analyzes the security of 802.1X based wireless networks and presents the methodology for auditing these networks. The thesis describes various methods of the EAP authentication protocol used in wireless networks, security risks arising from their usage and recommendations for mitigating these risks. The paper also includes implementation of applications for 802.1X based wireless network audit focusing on the EAP protocol processing.

A model to allow the design and evaluation of encapsulated ionic polymer transducers is developed. This model in based on a linearly coupled, two port, electrical equivalent circuit model (Newbury, 2002). The proposed model incorporates multilayer beam theory to model the passive stiffness effects of the encapsulation layer and attempts to increase the prediction accuracy of the model by using distributed parameter system modeling to create the mechanical terms used in the model. Modal expansion is used to extend the applicability of the mechanical impedance terms through multiple resonances of the transducer. The test setup as well as the mathematical approach to characterize the viscoelastic properties of Nafion™ as they relate to this work is described and the results presented. The model simulation is then compared to measured experimental data taken for a number of ionic-polymer-metal composites before and after encapsulation. The applicable frequency range of the model is explored as well as data trends seen above previous frequency ranges (approximately 1 kHz). Free deflection was predicted to reduce by an order of magnitude when the transducers were encapsulated with Kapton™. This trend was observed and correlates well with the measured response. Charge sensing and blocked force were found to increase for a transducer after encapsulation; this could be due to the higher coherence obtained in testing after encapsulation and is not predicted by the model. The model predicts charge sensing and blocked force should remain constant with encapsulation. Low frequency blocked force data for any given transducer was observed to be roughly an order of magnitude greater than the sensing response, before and after encapsulation. There is no explanation for this observation, future work should investigate this phenomena. / Master of Science

Yes / Due to the limited communication range of wearable devices, there is the need for wearable devices to communicate amongst themselves, supporting devices and the internet or to the internet. Most wearable devices are not internet enabled and most often need an internet enabled broker device or intermediate device in order to reach the internet. For a secure end to end communication between these devices security measures like authentication must be put in place in other to prevent unauthorised access to information given the sensitivity of the information collected and transmitted. Therefore, there are other existing authentication solutions for wearable devices but these solutions actively involve from time to time the user of the device which is prone to a lot of challenges. As a solution to these challenges, this paper proposes a secure point-to-point Self-authentication mechanism that involves device to device interaction. This work exploits existing standards and framework like NFC, PPP, EAP etc. in other to achieve a device compatible secure authentication protocol amongst wearable device and supporting devices..