Why public officials complicit in corruption? It is absolutely a nagging and antiquated question. This thesis examines the corruption on a micro-scale from those convicted in corruption cases in Central Java Province, Indonesia, more specifically by taking the personal views and experiences of the imprisoned actors into account. Broadly speaking, the problem of corruption is a tantalizing daily issue around Indonesia. Despite the government is highly committed to overcome corruption, it is argued that national corruption eradication efforts have not simply failed to diminish the number of corruption cases, but they - at least until 2019 – failed to impede the deployment of corruption from central to local government levels. Empirically, this study explores corruption from leadership theories to build its own analytical framework of corruption, namely administrative and political corruption. Using narrative analysis methods, this study analyses nine interviews with elective public officials at district and village levels, combined with several secondary techniques. In drawing its conclusions, this study highlights three major findings to understand the failure of government in addressing corruption, each of which is related to 1) critical role of public legitimacy built upon informal norms; 2) strict bureaucratic function built upon formal norms; 3) cleavages between formal and informal norms that encourage public officials to enact one or both types of corruption. Above all, the idea of ‘private gain’ as the central element of corruption cannot be found in this study. Ultimately, this study provides some direction for future research that would suggest academia and policymakers to better understand the corruption in the public sector by taking informal norms into consideration.

Purpose: This research reviews the Project Implementation Profile (PIP) and explores its relevance to Upgrading Informal Settlements Programme (UISP) type projects in Cape Town. The research aims to: • Identify the most common PIP Critical Success Factors (CSF) for UISP projects, • Compare the common PIP Critical Success Factors (CSF) for UISP projects to the Construction Sector CSF • Evaluate if the PIP tool is applicable to UISP projects. • Determine if there any other critical success factors that need to be added to the CSF list that is critical to the UISP Project success Approach: A literature review was conducted to assist in identifying the common CSF in the Constructions Sector. A survey questionnaire was sent out to relevant UISP Project Managers. The survey questionnaire was based on the PIP questionnaire with additional questions regarding to the effectiveness of the PIP tool on UISP projects. The intent of the survey questionnaire is firstly to establish the common CSF for UISP projects and then evaluate the PIP effectiveness on UISP projects. Findings: Based on the research results, it was found that the high scoring CSF for UISP projects were Project Mission, Client Consultation, Technical Tasks, Monitoring and Feedback, Personal. When the high scoring CSF was compared to the Literature Based Construction Sector CSF, the following common CSF was established: Monitoring and Feedback, Client Consultation and Technical Tasks. Practical Implications: This research will give an indication of the high and low scoring CSF relevant to UISP projects, which project managers and Managers in the Human Settlements industry can use to evaluate their UISP or Breaking New Ground (BNG) housing projects. Furthermore, the PIP tool may be utilised more frequently as a project quality success assurance tool in the organisation. The PIP tool has been tested and verified in a number of different industries in previous studies but never in its application to UISP or BNG projects.

The present thesis which focuses on the needs of people with dementia and the support of their independent living in the home environment was written within the framework of the PhD study in Longevity at the Faculty of Humanities, Charles University, GAČR project co- researcher and AZV participated in during post gradual studies. Presented research focuses on the needs of home dwelling people with dementia, the needs of their informal carers, the needs and experiences with providing care of patients with dementia in acute hospital care. The text of the thesis is divided into four parts, which are based on texts reviewed and published or prepared for publication. The first three parts present own research aimed at identifying the needs of people with dementia and experiences with caring of them in their home environment and in the hospital environment during acute care. The final part presents the possibilities and services to support their independent life in their own environment.

As envisaged in the Sustainable Development Goals, eradicating poverty by 2030 is among the most important steps to achieve a better and more sustainable future. A key contribution to reach this target is to ensure that vulnerable households are effectively protected against weather-related extreme events and other economic, social and ecological shocks and disasters. Insurance products specifically designed for the needs of low-income households in developing countries are seen as an effective instrument to encompass also the poor with an affordable risk-coping mechanism and are thus highly promoted and supported by governments in recent years. However, apart from direct positive effects, the introduction of formal insurance may have unintended side effects. In particular, it might affect traditional risk-sharing arrangements where income losses are covered by an exchange of money, labour and in-kind goods between neighbours, relatives or friends. A weakening of informal safety nets may increase social inequality if poor households cannot afford formal insurance. In order to design insurance products in a sustainable way, sound understanding of their interplay with risk-sharing networks is urgently needed. Socio-environmental modelling is a suitable approach to address the complexity of this challenge. In the first part of this thesis, an agent-based model is developed to investigate the effects of formal insurance and informal risk-sharing on the resilience of smallholders. To lay the conceptual foundation for this approach, a literature review is presented which provides an overview of how to couple agent-based modelling with social network analysis. In two subsequent modelling studies, it is analysed (i) how the introduction of insurance influences the overall welfare in a population and (ii) what determines the resilience of the poorest to shocks when income is heterogeneously distributed and not all households can afford formal insurance. The simulation results underline the importance of designing insurance policies in close alignment with established risk-coping arrangements to ensure sustainability while striving to eradicate poverty. It is shown that introducing formal insurance can have negative side effects when insured households have fewer resources to share with their uninsured peers after paying the insurance premium or when they reduce their solidarity. However, especially when many households are simultaneously affected by a shock, e.g. by droughts or floods, formal insurance is a valuable addition to informal risk-sharing. By applying a regression analysis to simulation results for an empirical network from the Philippines, it is furthermore inferred that network characteristics must be considered in addition to individual household properties to identify the most vulnerable households that neither have access to formal insurance nor are adequately protected through informal risk-sharing. In the second part of this thesis, a broader perspective is taken on the use of models in socio-environmental systems. First, it is envisioned how models in combination with empirical studies could improve insurance design under climate change. Second, requirements for making socio-environmental modelling more useful to support policy and management and scientific results more influential on policy-making are synthesised. Overall, this thesis offers new insights into the interplay of formal and informal risk-coping instruments that complement existing empirical research and underlines the potential of socio-environmental modelling to address sustainability and development challenges.

Arbetstillfredsställelse och informellt lärande är två välstuderade ämnen men otillräckligt medstudier har undersökt sambandet dem emellan. En orsak kan vara att arbetstillfredsställelse faller inom ramen för psykologi och informellt lärande faller inom ramen för pedagogik. Syftet med föreliggande studie är att undersöka sambandet mellan arbetstillfredsställelse och informellt lärande. Då tidigare studier tyder på personlighet har betydelse för både arbetstillfredsställelse och informellt lärande har vi valt att addera personlighet som modererande en variabel, för att se hur sambandet påverkas. En kvantitativ metod användes och datainsamling skedde genom webbaserade frågeformulär bestående av 66 påståenden. Frågeformulären bestod av fyra instrument, IPIP-30 (ämnad att mäta personlighetsdimensionerna), instrument för informellt lärande på arbetsplatsen (LPW), instrument för arbetstillfredsställelse och instrument för Work-Life-Balance (COPSOQ) och bakgrundsfrågor (ålder, kön, utbildning, distans under covid-19, personalansvar, år på nuvarande arbetsplats och allmänt hälsotillstånd).  Totalt deltog 225 personer i studien (M = 34år, SD = 12, räckvidd 18–69 år, 91,5% kvinnor). Resultatet vittnar om ett positivt signifikant samband mellan arbetstillfredsställelse och informellt lärande. Neuroticism, extraversion och samvetsgrannhet påvisar signifikans till arbetstillfredsställelse separat, men har ingen interaktionseffekt på sambandet mellan våra två huvudvariabler, vilket innebär att personlighet inte har någon modererande effekt på relationen mellan arbetstillfredsställelse och informellt lärande. Vår slutsats är att informellt lärande verkar ha en betydande roll för arbetstillfredsställelsen och att fortsatta studier på området uppmuntras. / Job satisfaction and informal learning are two well-studied subjects, but insufficient studies have examined the relationship between them both. An explanation could be that job satisfaction being within the framework of psychology and informal learning being within the framework of pedagogy. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the relationship between job satisfaction and informal learning. As previous studies indicate personality is important for both job satisfaction and informal learning, we have chosen to add personality as a moderating variable, to see how the relationship is affected. A quantitative method was used and data collection was done through web-based questionnaires consisting of 66 statements. The questionnaires consisted of four instruments, IPIP-30 (intended to measurepersonality dimensions), instruments for informal learning in the workplace (LPW),instruments for job satisfaction, instruments for Work-Life-Balance (COPSOQ) and general questions (age, gender, education, distance during covid-19, personnel responsibilities, years at current workplace and general state of health). A total of 225 people participated in the study(M = 34 years, SD = 12, range 18-69 years, 91.5% women). The results testify to a positively significant relationship between job satisfaction and informal learning. Neuroticism,extraversion, and conscientiousness demonstrate significance to job satisfaction separately, but have no interaction effect on the relationship between our two main variables, meaning that personality has no moderating effect on the relationship between job satisfaction and informal learning. Our conclusion is that informal learning seems to play a significant role in job satisfaction and that further studies in this area are encouraged.

Denna studie berör lärares uppfattningar om nyanlända elevers matematiska svårigheter i årskurs 1–3. Flera nyanlända elever börjar i den svenska skolan, vissa av dem har skolbakgrund och vissa saknar det. Oavsett vilket är det skolans och lärarens plikt att handleda och stötta eleverna i deras studier. Tidigare forskning visar att de nyanlända eleverna ofta presterar sämre än andra elever i matematikundervisningen, speciellt när de stöter på textbaserade uppgifter. Det har framkommit tydligt att de nyanlända elevernas matematiska svårigheter uppstår på grund av att de saknar det svenska språket. I denna studie kommer det att presenteras vilka svårigheter några lärare upplever att nyanlända elever har i matematikundervisning och på vilket sätt lärarna stödjer dessa elever i matematikundervisningen. Denna studie är en kvalitativ studie där semistrukturerade intervjuer har utförts för att besvara forskningsfrågorna. Tre matematiklärare och tre SvA-lärare har deltagit och bidragit med sina tankar och resonerat kring studiens valda problemområde. Studien tar avstamp från det interkulturella perspektivet. Det framkommer i resultatet från de sex respondenterna att språket spelar en stor roll för de nyanlända elevernas lärande i ämnet matematik. I resultatet framkommer att lärarna hade liknande resonemang och tankar kring hur de ska uttala sig vid genomgångar och tydliggöra olika matematiska begrepp, termer och symboler. Studiens slutsats är att användning av studiehandledning, modersmål samt formellt och informellt språk är olika sätt att underlätta för nyanlända elever i matematikundervisningen. Vidare framkom att de modersmål som de nyanlända eleverna har kan utnyttjas för att öka elevernas förståelse för begrepp, termer och symboler i matematikundervisningen. Detta betyder att språket kan spela en stor roll i de nyanlända elevernas kunskapsutveckling. / This study deals with teachers’ views of mathematical difficulties for newly arrived students in Grades 1-3. Several newly arrived students have started in the Swedish schools, some of them have a school background and some do not. Either way, it is the duty of the school and the teacher to manage and support the students in their education. Previous research show that newly arrived pupils often perform worse than other pupils in mathematics education, especially when the instruction relies on text-based assignments. It has become clear that the newly arrived pupils’ mathematical difficulties arise partly because they lack the Swedish language. This study will present what difficulties some teachers of newly arrived students have in mathematics instruction and in what way they support newly arrived students in their mathematics teaching. This study is a qualitative study where semi-structured interviews have been done to answer the research questions. Three mathematics teachers and three Swedish as second language teachers have participated and contributed with their thoughts and reasoned about the study's chosen problem. The study has taken off from the intercultural perspective. The results from the six respondents clearly show that language plays a significant role in the newly arrived students' learning abilities in mathematics. The result shows that the teachers had similar thoughts and opinions about how they should express themselves during lectures and how to clarify different mathematical concepts, terms and symbols. The study's conclusion is that study guidance, mother tongue as well as formal and informal language is strategies to advance mathematics teaching for the newly arrived students. In addition, it was found that the native languages that the newly arrived students have can be appointed to increase the students' understanding of concepts, terms and symbols in mathematics education. This means that language plays an important role in the newly arrived students' development of knowledge.

Thesis (M. Sc. (Microbiology)) --University of Limpopo, 2019 / Informal street traders and traditional health practitioners at Ga Maja (Limpopo Province) primarily offer consumers semi-processed herbal concoctions that are indicated to have blood-cleansing, immune-boosting, detoxifying, antidiarrheal, antiHIV/AIDS and pain-relieving therapeutic properties. The focus of this study was to validate the pharmacological effects and safety of these herbal concoctions as indicated by the traders. Five herbal concoctions and their medicinal plant recipies used for their preparation were purchased from five independent traders. A laboratory concoction was prepared according to the traders’ instructions. Possible microbial contaminants were identified using Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionisation time-offlight mass spectrometry and VITEK 2. Nutritional content of the concoctions was determined by a plasma atomic emission spectrophotometer. Qualitative phytochemical analysis was determined using standard chemical tests and thin layer chromatography. Total polyphenol content was quantified calorimetrically. Antioxidant activity was quantified using 2, 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and ferric reducing power assays. Antimicrobial activities were determined using a broth micro-dilution assay and bioautography. Anti-HIV-1 reverse transcriptase activity was used to determine the antiviral potential of the concoctions. Anti-inflammatory activity was determined using the cyclooxygenase inhibition assays and possible cytotoxic effects of the concoctions were evaluated using MTT cell viability assay. Growth on potato dextrose and nutrient agar plates indicated heavy microbial contamination. Sodium, potassium and zinc were most abundant in the concoctions. The concoctions had similar phytochemical profiles, and together with plant decoctions consisted primarily of polyphenolic constituents. Generally, some plant decoctions had higher antioxidant (EC50: 15.71 – 40.87 µg/mL) and antibacterial (MIC: 0.04 – 0.63 mg/mL) activities. The antimicrobial activities of the concoctions were as a result of synergistic effects of the compounds because no single compound was observed to have antimicrobial activities on the bioautograms. Combination studies showed that the combination of crude decoctions from different plant species resulted in reduced antioxidant, antibacterial and antifungal activities. The laboratory concoction had higher anti-HIV reverse transcriptase activity (EC50: 2.90 µg/mL) than the positive controls used (EC50: 36.65 – 40.90 µg/mL). The concoctions also demonstrated considerable antiinflammatory activity. The lack of standardisation of phytomedicines reduces their xxi pharmacological potential and consistency. However, this study validated the ethnopharmacological use of the different plant species and herbal concoctions towards the treatment of human immune-deficiency virus, pain caused by inflammation, infectious diarrhoea and for immune-boosting. This study also highlighted the complexities associated with combinations of aqueous extracts and the importance of appropriate knowledge on which plant species are to be mixed to enhance their therapeutic properties. Although the concoctions did not exhibit cyctotoxic effects, toxicities may arise from endotoxins produced by the microbial contaminants. Hygienic processing and packaging are essential to ensure that consumers receive quality products that are safe to consume.

Thesis (M. Sc. (Computer Science)) --University of Limpopo, 2019 / A Text-to-speech (TTS) synthesis system is a software system that receives text as input and produces speech as output. A TTS synthesis system can be used for, amongst others, language learning, and reading out text for people living with different disabilities, i.e., physically challenged, visually impaired, etc., by native and non-native speakers of the target language. Most people relate easily to a second language spoken by a non-native speaker they share a native language with. Most online English TTS synthesis systems are usually developed using native speakers of English. This research study focuses on developing accented English synthetic voices as spoken by non-native speakers in the Limpopo province of South Africa. The Modular Architecture for Research on speech sYnthesis (MARY) TTS engine is used in developing the synthetic voices. The Hidden Markov Model (HMM) method was used to train the synthetic voices. Secondary training text corpus is used to develop the training speech corpus by recording six speakers reading the text corpus. The quality of developed synthetic voices is measured in terms of their intelligibility, similarity and naturalness using a listening test. The results in the research study are classified based on evaluators’ occupation and gender and the overall results. The subjective listening test indicates that the developed synthetic voices have a high level of acceptance in terms of similarity and intelligibility. A speech analysis software is used to compare the recorded synthesised speech and the human recordings. There is no significant difference in the voice pitch of the speakers and the synthetic voices except for one synthetic voice.

Orientador: Ana Maria Klein / Resumo: No Brasil, as violações aos Direitos Humanos são cotidianas e ocorrem em diferentes âmbitos sociais, pela omissão ou negligência do Estado na promoção de direitos, pelas instituições que muitas vezes não reconhecem os direitos das pessoas, ou nas relações interpessoais que se pautam pelas violências e desrespeito à dignidade humana. Tais violações ocorrem em um contexto de ignorância e preconceito em relação a este conjunto de direitos que deveriam ser enfrentados por meio de ações educativas. A mídia é reconhecida como um importante agente de educação informal pelos principais documentos que orientam a Educação em Direitos Humanos no Brasil. Neste sentido, o presente estudo problematiza a abordagem dos Direitos Humanos pelos telejornais brasileiros. O trabalho está estruturado em forma de artigos que buscam responder conceitualmente e empiricamente ao seguinte problema: como os Direitos Humanos são abordados em telejornais das televisões abertas do Brasil? A abordagem empírica do problema se dá no continum qualitativo-quantitativo e as técnicas utilizadas foram pesquisa bibliográfica, pesquisa documental e análise de conteúdo. Foram analisados cinco telejornais: SBT Brasil (SBT), Jornal da Record (Record), Jornal Nacional (Rede Globo), Jornal da Cultura (TV Cultura) e Brasil Urgente (Band). Os dados foram avaliados por meio de uma ficha de análise e categorização das matérias. Os resultados encontrados demonstram ausência de informações ou menções aos Direitos Humanos, embor... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: In Brazil, human rights violations are commonplace and occur in different social spheres, by the State's omission or negligence in promoting rights, by institutions that often do not recognize people's rights, or in interpersonal relationships that are guided by violence and disrespect for human dignity. Such violations occur in a context of ignorance and prejudice in relation to this set of rights that should be faced by educational actions. The media is an important agent of informal education by the main documents that guide Human Rights Education in Brazil. In this sense, the present study problematizes the approach to Human Rights by Brazilian news programs. We structured this work in the form of articles that address the bibliographic review and the analysis of the collected data. The problem approach is in the qualitative-quantitative continuum and the techniques used were bibliographic research, documentary research and content analysis. We evaluated the data using an analysis and categorization sheet. The results found demonstrate the absence of information or mention of Human Rights, although all the matters relates with some of these rights. The news programs do not name or identify Human Rights, contributing to the ignorance and maintenance of existing prejudices in the country and failing to contribute to the formation of the viewer as a subject of rights. / Mestre

Då arbetslivet förändras i snabb takt och det finns förhoppningar och krav på att digitaliseringen ska lösa stora delar av de problem som uppstår vid snabba förändringar inom offentlig verksamhet har denna studie tittat närmare på hur lärandet kan se ut vid digital förändring inom offentlig verksamhet. Uppsatsens syfte var att undersöka och skapa kunskap om hur lärprocessen och lärmiljön vid införandet av nytt digitalt arbetssätt ser ut, utvecklas och fungerar i en hemtjänstgrupp. Detta gjordes genom en kvalitativ undersökning utifrån en fallstudie vid en arbetsplats i en kommun i Mellansverige. Data samlades in genom observation, enkät samt intervjuer med chef och medarbetare. De teoretiska utgångspunkter som används i studien är främst P-E Ellströms perspektiv på lärande i arbetslivet samt Ellström & Ekholm och Kocks perspektiv på lärmiljöer. Dessa teoretiska utgångspunkter används som ett verktyg för att analysera det insamlade datamaterialet. Resultatet visar att lärandet sker genom informellt lärande på arbetsplatsen genom gemensamma genomgångar, individuella uppföljningar samt ett kollegialt lärande. Lärprocessen är både reproduktiv och utvecklingsinriktad, det skiljer dels mellan chef och medarbetare men även inom arbetsgruppen hur lärprocessen tar form. Då arbetssättet är nytt för hela gruppen är mycket reproduktivt lärande men även inslag av utvecklingsinriktat lärande finns i form av vissa ifrågasättanden, innovationer och utvecklande. Lärmiljön på enheten är i stort stödjande utifrån en stöttande ledning, stöttande medarbetare, ett delvis öppet klimat och delaktighet. Det finns även vissa incitament som tyder på en begränsande lärmiljö utifrån bristande resurser i form av utrustning samt tid och även en frustration och tidvis kontrollerande ledning.