This research study examined the effects of classwide peer support training on the occurrence of initiated and reciprocal peer interactions of students with significant disabilities in two inclusive physical education classes. An AB research design was used to document changes in the occurrence of initiated and reciprocal peer interactions of students with significant disabilities following the provision of peer support training to all of their classmates. Four students with significant disabilities were observed in the study and baseline and post-intervention data on the occurrence of peer interactions were collected. The peer support training was provided to classes where four students with significant disabilities were included (two students in each classroom). Thirty-seven peers in the physical education classes were taught to (a) identify expectations within a single activity designed for the entire class in which a student with significant disabilities could also participate, (b) utilize the concept of partial participation to meaningfully include a student with significant disabilities in physical education classroom activities, (c) address priority educational goals from a student's Individual Education Plan during group activities, (d) use positive feedback and reinforcement to encourage participation, (e) program and use augmentative communication devices for meaningful participation in activities occurring in a physical education classroom, and (f) employ strategies to facilitate the development of peer relations and encourage interactions in ways that provide alternatives to an overreliance on paraprofessionals. After the peer support training was provided to the students in both physical education classes, follow-up observations were conducted to determine the impact of that peer support training on the occurrence and type of peer interactions of students with significant disabilities in inclusive physical education classes. Increases in the occurrence of interactions, as well as increases in both initiated and reciprocal peer interactions were documented as additional opportunities for students with significant disabilities to interact with their classmates were created. With the total number of peer interactions increasing following the training for each of the four boys, the success of the strategies employed could lead to increased levels of acceptance and access to other areas of the general education environment alongside their peers without disabilities.

Ethylene copolymers are widely used as packaging materials, adhesives and specialty polymers for well-regarded cost savings, durability, chemical resistance, and hot melt character. This work examines the use of diester monomers known as malonates to determine the plausibility of utilizing an uncommon monomer class for producing novel ethylene copolymers. Ethylene is copolymerized with diethyl methylene malonate—a simple malonate representative of more complex and highly modified malonate monomers and macromers—to produce ethylene-co-diethyl methylene malonate in a range of molecular weights. Ethylene-co-diethyl methylene malonate is analyzed to determine physical properties such as glass transition temperature, chain length and monomer incorporation. Successful copolymerization occurred under a range of temperatures and pressures in tetrahydrofuran, diethyl carbonate, and dimethyl carbonate. The produced polymers were found to have a molecular weight of 15-46 kg/mol, a glass transition temperature of 7°C, a melting temperature of 108°C, and a cold crystallization temperature of 64°C. The high concentration of a radical source inhibitor in the diethyl methylene malonate monomer solution negatively impacted molecular weight and ethylene incorporation.

China is growing as an economic power leading to more and more foreign organizations taking the opportunity of its future potential and hence opening up their subsidies there. Companies nowadays, have several options when it comes to what type of workforce they should recruit. Self-Initiated Expatriates (SIEs) are a growing group in the international workforce who goes to work in another country on their own initiative as compared to the traditional expatriates that are sent by companies. Our literature research indicated that SIEs are perceived as a group of people who lack organizational commitment and tend to switch jobs often, which makes organizations reluctant to employ and invest in them.Inspired by this, we have a performed a study, which investigated SIEs’ experiences in China. The purpose of the study was to develop recommendations for organizations on how to better leverage SIEs as human resource. To fulfill the purpose of our thesis, we conducted a qualitative study, where we interviewed ten Westerners who currently had a job or previously had been employed in China. Our empirical findings revealed that SIEs perceive themselves as developing better cross-cultural skills and improving their language proficiency more than traditional expatriates as well as being much cheaper to employ. They do however need challenges, freedom and career development possibilities in order to stay satisfied. The failure to provide these from the company side results in them quitting their job or if the costs of quitting are too high, they stay on but performing only what they absolutely have to. As for the existing definitions, we found that a definition that only includes individuals with clear plans of return is not suitable since some SIEs have a “for now” mindset and only considering SIEs who intend to leave in the near future might lead to an overrepresentation of “failed” SIEs in the population. A more suitable definition should allow for less definite plans for staying in the host country.

Social networking has encouraged users to find new ways to create, post, search, collaborate and share information of various forms. Unfortunately there is a lot of data in social networks that is not well-managed, which makes the experience within these networks less than optimal. Therefore people generally need more and more time as well as advanced tools that are used for seeking relevant information. A new search paradigm is emerging, where the user perspective is completely reversed: from finding to being found. The aim of present thesis research is to evaluate two approaches of identifying content of interest: user-initiated and system-initiated. The most suitable approaches will be implemented. Various recommendation systems for system-initiated content recommendations will also be investigated, and the best suited ones implemented. The analysis that was performed demonstrated that the users have used all of the implemented approaches and have provided positive and negative comments for all of them, which reinforces the belief that the methods for the implementation were selected correctly. The results of the user testing of the methods were evaluated based on the amount of time it took the users to find the desirable content and on the correspondence of the result compared to the user expectations.

Magister Public Health - MPH / Background: Multidrug resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB) is a growing threat globally. The large increase in the incidence and prevalence of MDR TB in South Africa in recent years has impacted on the way in which MDR TB is managed within the health services. It became logistically difficult to manage MDR TB by treating all patients as in-patients in a specialized tuberculosis (TB) hospital. The clinics, which are run by nurses and/or general medical officers, are then required to manage this more complex form of TB, with limited resources, less experience and assumingly with less MDR TB knowledge. Of particular concern is that shifting of the patient management from specialized TB hospitals to Primary Health Care clinics which might worsen the already poor MDR TB treatment outcomes. There has been minimal assessment of the management of MDR TB at clinic level and hence the comparison of treatment outcomes for those patients initiated on treatment in clinics compared to in-patients in specialized TB hospitals is urgently needed. Aim: To compare the treatment outcomes and the effectiveness of medication regimens provided to MDR TB patients initiated on treatment in specialized TB hospitals as inpatients, to that of MDR TB patients initiated on treatment as outpatients at community clinics within the Western Cape Province, South Africa. Methodology Study Design: A retrospective cohort study was undertaken, as the length of treatment for a MDR TB patient can be for 24 months or longer and this study was based on treatment outcome data. Study Population and sample: The study population was uncomplicated MDR TB patients initiated on treatment in hospitals and clinics from January 2010 to December 2012. The sample comprised of 568 participants that were laboratory confirmed to have MDR TB and had the outcomes of their treatment recorded in an electronic database or a paper register. Data Collection: The researcher collected MDR TB information from standardized MDR TB registers as well as an electronic MDR TB database. Analysis: Data was analyzed comparing the exposed (clinic initiated) and unexposed (hospital initiated) cohorts incidence of 4 key treatment outcomes, namely: successfully treated, failed treatment, died and defaulted treatment. Bivariate analysis (relative and absolute) was done to determine the cumulative incidence ratio and cumulative incidence difference and multivariate logistic regression analysis for the adjusted odds ratio to control for confounders and effect modifiers. Ethics: Permission to conduct this research was obtained from the relevant authorities. The confidentiality of the participants as per the Department of Health policy and in adherence to general ethical guidelines was strictly maintained. The study proposal received ethical clearance and approval from the University of the Western Cape Research Committee. Results: All participants within this study received the appropriate treatment as per the MDR TB guidelines. The incidence rate for the main outcomes of this study indicated that successfully treated for the clinic initiated participants was 41% and 31% for the hospital initiated participants. ‘Defaulted’ treatment was 39% and 41%, ‘failed’ treatment 7% and 13% and ‘died’ was 14% and 16%, respectively. The clinic initiated participants appeared to have better treatment outcomes on bivariate analysis, however on multivariate analysis, there was no difference in the treatment outcomes of the clinic initiated participants compared to the hospital initiated participants, and therefore the clinic initiated treatment is seen as effective. The time to treatment initiation for clinic and hospital initiated participants is excessively long for both cohorts, with a median of 29 days, and 37 days respectively. The key findings of note in the multivariate analysis is that the Human Immunodeficiency Virus positive (HIV+) participants provided with antiretrovirals therapy (ART) were, based on adjusted cumulative incidence ratios, 6.6 times more likely to have a successfully treated outcome (95% CI 1.48-29.84), and were 0.2 times less likely to die (95% CI 0.08-0.53). Having a previous cured history of TB and no previous history of TB were 2.9 times more likely to have a successfully treated outcome (95% CI 1.48-5.56) and were 0.1 times (0.04-0.38) less likely to fail treatment. An interesting finding was that participants living in the rural districts were 2.6 times more likely to die. Conclusion: Clinic initiated treatment for uncomplicated MDR TB is as effective as hospital initiated treatment. Also, those provided with ART and those without previous TB or who had a previous bout of TB cured, had better outcomes. Main Recommendations: The Western Cape health department should continue with the decentralization of MDR TB services to the clinics and could safely consider expanding the decentralization to include uncomplicated Preextensively drug-resistant TB and Extensively drug-resistant TB patients. Offering ART to HIV+ patients should be mandatory. The delays in the time to treatment initiation of MDR TB need to be further investigated.

The number of potential applications for wireless sensor networks is immense. These networks may consist of large numbers of low cost, low power, disposable sensor nodes that can be deployed inside or close to phenomena to be monitored. The nature of these networks necessitates specific design requirements, of which energy efficiency is paramount. The limited available energy of sensor nodes is mainly drained during communication and computational processing. An energy efficient routing protocol can limit the number of message transmissions and the computational complexity of finding routing paths. Many routing protocols have been proposed for wireless sensor networks. Most of them are computationally complex, require a large number of messages to be transmitted or require that sensor nodes possess certain hardware capabilities in order to function. The objective of this dissertation was to develop a Simple Energy Efficient Routing (SEER) protocol for wireless sensor networks that is computationally simple, reduces the number of transmitted messages and does not impose any hardware prerequisites. The new routing protocol, which was developed during this research, uses a flat network structure for scalability and source initiated communication along with event-driven reporting to reduce the number of message transmissions. Computational simplicity is achieved by using a simple method for routing path selection. The SEER protocol selects the next hop for a message by choosing a neighbour that has a smaller or equal hop count to the current node. If multiple neighbours satisfy this requirement, the neighbour with the highest remaining energy is chosen as the next hop. Each node in the network has a table containing the hop count and remaining energy of each of its neighbours. Periodic messages sent through the network update these neighbour tables. SEER uses a novel approach to select the next hop of a message during routing. The protocol increases the lifetime of the network dramatically, compared to other similar routing protocols. This improvement is directly related to the reduction in the number of transmissions made by each node. The simplicity of the protocol reduces the required computational processing compared to other protocols, and at the same time makes this one of the few available protocols that does not impose hardware requirements on nodes in order to function. / Dissertation (MEng (Computer Engineering))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering / unrestricted

Den rådande föreställningen om naturvetenskap i förskolan handlar oftast om att pedagoger ska ta tag i, möta och lyfta fram barns frågor, för att naturvetenskap på så vis ska bli en naturlig del av vardagen i verksamheten. Syftet med min undersökning är att belysa de didaktiska möjligheter som finns i den oplanerade uteverksamheten i förskolan, och att öka förståelsen för hur interaktionsprocesser mellan pedagoger och barn kan påverka lärande och kunskap inom området naturvetenskap. Med hjälp av observationer av pedagoger har jag jämfört om det är någon skillnad mellan utedagar i skogen eller på förskolegården under oplanerade verksamhetstiden. För att få svar på hur pedagogerna kan använda sig av de spontana händelser och upptäckter barn gör till ett lärande kring natur har jag även utfört intervjuer. Resultatet visar att pedagogerna tar till stor del vara på de tillfällen som uppstår i den oplanerade tiden till ett lärande och kunskap om naturen. Än tydligare är resultatet i skogen då hela miljön är en inspirationskälla och inga lekredskap pockar på barnens uppmärksamhet med sin närvaro. / The prevailing notion about natural-science in preschool often involves that a teacher should show, lift and highlight children’s questions for thereby become a natural part in the everyday activity. The intention with this study was to illustrate the didactic opportunities which are available in the unplanned time outdoors in preschool, and to increase understanding of how the processes of interaction between teachers and children can affect learning and knowledge in the subject of natural science. By using observations of teachers in preschool, I have compared whether there is any difference between days out in the woods or in the preschool yard during unplanned activity time. I also conducted interviews to find out how teachers can use the spontaneous experience and discoveries children make to learn about natural science. The results show that teachers in preschool take the opportunities that occur in the unplanned time to learning and to give knowledge of nature. Even clearer is the result at activities in the forest where the whole environment become a source of inspiration and when no play equipment attracts the children's attention with their presence.

There is great interest in miniaturized analytical systems for life science research, the clinical environment, drug discovery, biotechnology, quality control, and environmental monitoring and numerous articles have been written which predict the success of microfluidic based systems. It was demonstrated in this work that a microfluidic flow system could be quickly and easily manufactured in a research lab environment without the need for clean room facilities. The microfluidic device was created using polymethylmethacrylate, a CO2 laser and a standard oven. The device was designed, manufactured and ready for use within three hours. This work also investigated a chemiluminescent system which was intended for use in protease assays in the microfluidic device. This work also focused on the use of photoinitiated polymer monoliths, with immobilized tannic acid, as protein preconcentrators. The function of the monolithic devices was demonstrated by pumping low concentration solutions of BSA BODIPY® FL through the monolith. Both loading and elution were done using pressure. It was shown that BSA could be concentrated on and successfully eluted from the monolith. The elution volume for a 125 nl monolith was found to be 4 μl. Therefore an injection of a 60 μl sample of 1 x 10⁻⁹M BSA BODIPY ® FL gave rise to a concentration factor of 15. The pH optimum for the binding of BSA BODIPY ® FL was found to be pH 8.0 and the loading capacity of the tannic acid monolith was found to be 0.6 mg.ml⁻¹.

A systematic study of the surface-initiated polymerisation kinetics of a relatively new type of atom transfer radical polymerisation (ATRP), activators regenerated by electron transfer (ARGET) ATRP, is first demonstrated in this report. Poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) (PHEMA) and poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) were successfully grown from silicon surfaces at room temperature by surface-initiated ARGET ATRP using a "3rd generation" cationic macroinitiator. The polymer films were analysed by ellipsometry, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). With the initial experiment showing that water accelerated conventional ATRP but made it less controlled, the effect of solvent on ARGET ATRP was also evaluated. The living character of ARGET ATRP was demonstrated by successfully reinitiating PHEMA-grafted silicon wafers to grow a second block of PHEMA. Initiator density was shown to have a great effect on the growth rate of PHEMA film thickness on silicon surfaces by comparing the ARGET ATRP growth of PHEMA films using two different initiators, "1st generation" and "3rd generation" cationic macroinitiators, which have different ratios of initiating groups to positive charge. Another type of initiator for ATRP systems, an amide silane, was then investigated as an alternative to polyelectrolyte macroinitiators to avoid degrafting. The effects of solvent, 2, 2′ bipyridyl (bpy) ligand concentration and different types of reducing agent on the growth of PHEMA film from amide-initiator coated silicon wafers by ARGET ATRP were then explored at room temperature. However, it was found that the swings in the uncontrolled laboratory ambient temperature caused inter-sample and inter-experiment variability and so could make the evaluations inaccurate or even wrong. An investigation of temperature on ARGET ATRP showed a dramatic effect on the polymerisation rate. The higher the temperature, the faster the polymerisation proceeded. Therefore, the effects of solvent, ratio of bpy to Cu and reducing agent on the ARGET ATRP growth of PHEMA brushes from amide initiator-coated silicon wafers were re-evaluated at a constant temperature, 30 °C. The development of a polydopamine-based initiator, which was designed to be able to be immobilised on a wide range of surfaces, is then presented in this report. Polydopamine was first shown to be able to deposit on various types of material surfaces by oxidative polymerisation in aqueous solution. Bromoester initiating groups for ATRP systems were incorporated into polydopamine coatings by reacting a fraction of the dopamine monomer with 2-bromoisobutyryl bromide (BIBB) before polymerisation. The modified polydopamine initiator film grew at a comparable rate to unmodified polydopamine, with a 45 nm being grown in 24 hours. Successful incorporation of initiator groups was confirmed by XPS and FTIR, and by the growth of PMMA and PHEMA polymer brushes by ARGET ATRP from the polydopamine initiator coatings. A PMMA brush with a thickness of 239 nm was grown in 72 hours, indicating that the grafting density is sufficiently high to be in the brush regime. This initiator was demonstrated to be able to deposit on a range of substrates, such as metals (steel) and polymers (polystyrene), and successfully initiate polymer growth, demonstrating its broad applicability. The assessment of ARGET ATRP as a simple and effective tool for interfacial shear strength improvement in cellulose-based fibre reinforced thermoplastic composites is finally presented. It was demonstrated by control experiments that grafting polystyrene on glass fibre surfaces via ARGET ATRP greatly improved the interfacial adhesion between glass fibres and a high-impact polystyrene (HIPS) matrix, although a specific value of interfacial strength was not obtained due to failure of the modified glass fibre composite samples in areas other than the interface. It was then demonstrated that PMMA was successfully grown from the surfaces of polydopamine initiator coated cotton fibre and BIBB-modified cotton fibre by ARGET ATRP. Polydopamine initiator was shown to be a better initiator for cotton fibre than BIBB, possibly since the adsorbed water on cotton fibres can react with BIBB. The improvement of interfacial adhesion between cotton fibres and a PMMA matrix by grafting PMMA on the cotton surface was assessed by peel testing of cotton fibres pressed into PMMA sheets. There is a clear trend in the relationship between the peeling force and growth time of PMMA on the cotton fibre by ARGET ATRP, although the inter-sample reproducibility is not good.

Child initiated play appears as a means for children to express their inner world and personality and works as a milestone promoting their overall development. Internalized emotional disturbances constrain children’s functioning and have an impact on their general behavior, hindering their development. Most of the times, it appears challenging for teachers to identify a child with internalizing problems in the preschool classroom and most interventions are targeting children with externalized problems. Since play is a way for children to express, observations of children’s behavior while playing, provide information about their inner thoughts and concerns. The aim of the present study was to identify play behaviors and tendencies in types of play that children with typical and atypical internalized emotional disturbances show in free play situations in preschool. A systematic literature review was conducted in order to reach this goal. Six articles were included in which five internalized emotional disturbances were mentioned -one typical and four atypical. Findings revealed eight overt play behaviors, with prevalent these of non-play, solitary-passive behavior, unconscious play activity and desire for peer play but no attempt for it. Regarding engagement in play types, children exhibiting internalized problems were more prone to constructive and creative play and less engaged in symbolic play, which can be possible indicator of developmental delays. This study works as a tool for professionals in order to identify play behaviors of children with internalized emotional disturbances in preschool child initiated play. Subsequently, the findings assist interventionists on providing adequate support and clinicians on shedding light on the dubious field of emotional and behavioral disorders in early childhood.