Acts of violence on farms and smallholdings are continuing unabated in spite of the efforts of the government and the agricultural unions to quell attacks on members of the farming community. Although research has been done on various aspects of farm attacks, empirical information regarding farmers’ perceptions of their susceptibility to attacks, the consequences that are suffered and the coping strategies that farmers apply after victimisation, is limited to that contained in the Report of the Committee of Inquiry into Farm Attacks. In order to gain first-hand information with regard to this phenomenon, the researcher interviewed 15 direct victims of attacks on a one-on-one basis. All the attacks occurred in the Mpumalanga Province and the adjoining Nokeng Tsa Taemane region in the Gauteng Province. Based on the analysis and interpretation of the data, it was found that most of the respondents felt unsafe on their farms. In spite of this, they were all taken by surprise by their attackers. While the majority of the respondents believed that their homes were reasonably secure, financial and familial constraints prevented some from improving the guardianship on their farms. Those who had good security systems in their homes, were attacked outside or in the early evening before the systems were activated. The findings also revealed that the immediate reactions of victims of farm attacks do not differ fundamentally from those of other victims of crime. Reactions include surprise, fear of being killed, injured and/or raped and powerlessness. After the attacks they often experienced anger and bitterness. Analysis of the data furthermore indicated that physical injuries ranged from minor to serious injuries that necessitated hospitalisation. Emotional and social harm were also experienced by victims, causing them to be fearful and distrustful of black persons, as the attacks were all black on white. Farm attacks also had negative financial consequences for the victims. Capital that might have been used for other purposes had to be used to pay medical and funeral bills and upgrade security, especially since most victims feared re-victimisation. After the attacks some respondents preferred to relocate. While many of the respondents found it too costly to implement the necessary target hardening measures, avoidance behaviour in the form of alertness was identified as the most effective means of preventing victimisation in the future. Other avoidance tactics included feeding dogs in the afternoon when visibility is still good and sending employees out to establish the reason for the visit of black strangers who arrive on the farm without an appointment. Erroneous perceptions with regard to the motives for attacks and the profile of attackers, as well as complacency about security which often sets in because of the routine nature of farmers’ lifestyle, were identified as the main reasons for farmers’ susceptibility to victimisation. It was also found that the respondents’ coping strategies varied. While some relied on their Christian faith and the support of family and friends, others exerted their inner strength to regain their emotional equilibrium. On the basis of the above findings, recommendations were made regarding further research and measures that might be implemented by both the government and farmers to reduce the number of farm attacks. It was highlighted that factors such as hate speech, socio-economic conditions in rural areas, the acceleration of land reform and education deserve further attention. Farmers must guard against complacency and make informed decisions about security on the farms. As coping strategies vary, it was furthermore stated that victimised farmers need to persevere until they have assimilated the negative experience. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Social Work and Criminology / unrestricted

The current paper is aimed at providing an overview of the current state of research regarding the potential of linking series of crimes to single offenders through repeated modus operandi behaviors. A systematic literature review was conducted to document findings from previous evaluation research as to the predictive accuracy of crime linkage specific to residential burglary. The findings indicate that predictions of linked burglaries can be made with moderate to high predictive accuracy. In order to get an understanding of the extent to which residential burglary offenders repeat their crime scene behaviors, the findings are discussed in relation to the criminological theories Routine activities theory and the Rational Choice perspective. Future research is suggested.

Introduction. The police and the investigation team has been manually doing behavioural analysis and connecting different crimes to an offender. With the help of computers technologies, databases, and automated system, the statistical analysis of the offender’s behaviour significantly improved. There we can transfer from a manual process to an automated one, and the investigator can allocate time and resources better by prioritising the offenders to investigate. In this study, we create and experiment with a proof of concept system that ranks and prioritise different offenders using the Random Choice method in combination with the state of the art Spatial-Temporal method. Objectives. In experimenting with the proof of concept system, we are aiming to understand the effect of different offender’s behaviour having on the offenders ranking and the effect of having multiple different numbers of reference crimes in the database. The objective is also to understand the role of consistency and distinctiveness in offenders ranking. Moreover, understanding the performances of our proof of concept system comparing to already existing methods such as Random Choice, Spatial-Temporal and a baseline method that based on pure randomness. Method. The method we chose for this study was an experimental study. With an experimental environment with independent and dependent variables, we presented and evaluated the system. We were using the experimenting approach because it has a stable presence and widely used in similar studies in this field. Results. After the experiments, we found that different Modus Operandi (MO)categories have a different effect on the ranking results and different distinctive combinations of MO categories also has different accuracy when ranking the offenders. Offenders that were consistent with more references crime in the database were often higher ranked and were linked more correctly. Our proof of concept system shows significant improvement over Random Choice method and the Spatial-Temporalmethod. Conclusion. From the results, we concluded that the proof of concept system displays a significant accuracy in ranking and prioritising offenders, there different MO categories and combinations of them has a different effect on the accuracy of the ranking. The ranking system was also affected by the number of reference cases that exist in the database. Future works can extend the study by trying to improve different aspects of the proof of concept systems, such as the Random Choice aspect or the Spatial-Temporal aspect.

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Den här studien har som syfte att undersöka lärares attityd till användandet av Powerpoint i undervisningen. Vårt fokus har varit på lärares attityd till de presentationstekniska hjälpmedlen Powerpoint och Google Presentation. Studiens teoretiska utgångspunkt involverar teorier om multimodalitet, IKT samt digital- och media literacy i undervisningen. För att besvara våra frågeställningar har vi använt oss av en kvalitativ forskningsmetod i form av semistrukturerade intervjuer med fem verksamma lärare som arbetar på högstadiet respektive gymnasiet. Resultatet av studien visar bland annat att informanterna upplever varierade attityder till användningen av Powerpoint och Google Presentation i undervisningen. Här visade det sig bland annat att lärares kompetens till det digitala hjälpmedlet samt i vilket syfte det används är avgörande faktorer till vilken attityd de har. Informanterna som hade positiv inställning till hjälpmedlet var även de som främst nyttjade olika modus som till exempel bilder, gester och tal i förhoppning att vidga elevernas förståelse. En annan aspekt som lärarna lyfter är svårigheten med att förlita sig på digital teknik och tekniska problem som uppstår. Studien avslutas med en diskussion kring resultatet samt förslag på vidare forskning inom området.

Precis The Political philosophy of John Gray touches a number of topics and also has gone thrue a couple of modifications. However this thesis aims to show that there can be found a consistent political doctrine of agonistic liberalism in Gray's thought that arises from his critigue of rationalistic theories of liberalism. Agonistic liberalism is based on the naturalistic ethical theory of value-pluralism which Gray adopted whit some modifications from Isaiah Berlin. On the ground of incommensurability and uncombinability of some values within individuel lives as well as within life forms Gray comes to conclusion that the conflict of values is ineradicable part of our lives. And that's the reason why any legel or political theory cannot set up a set of liberal principles that could claim universal validity. That is why Gray sets up the concept of modus vivendi, political ideal of coexistence of individuals, groups and societies based on mutual toleration. With regard to the rational indeterminacy of conflicts over values, according to agonistic liberalism these conflict has to by resolved by political means.

The aim of the present paper is to better understand the reality of religious pluralism, itscauses and the possibilities by which this situation could be maximized in the sense oftrying to reach a satisfactory agreement for all parties involved through reflections onpluralism. Corollary, it seeks to deepen the understanding on the topic ofmulticulturalism with a focus on the field of religious and political theory on topics suchas minorities, religious and cultural pluralism, liberal multiculturalism. In trying tosolve this spinney theoretical inquiry I chose to focus on a case study about theOrthodox Church’s traditional values that represent the keystone of what the Churchpreaches, with a strong focus on collective interests to the detriment of individual rights,intolerance of religious minorities.

Ziel der narratologischen Textanalyse ist es die Erzählform – mit Schwerpunkt auf Zeit und Modus – in Peter Stamms Roman Weit über das Land zu untersuchen. Darüber hinaus wird untersucht, ob die Erzählform in dem analysierten Roman mit derjenigen übereinstimmt, die in der Forschung vom Peter Stamms‘ literarischen Werk hervorgehoben wird. Zusammenfassend kann gesagt werden, dass der Erzähltext des Romans eine erzähltechnische Struktur besitzt, die Distanzlosigkeit bewirkt, Interesse und Engagement weckt und zu Mitarbeit von den LeserInnen einlädt. Des Weiteren wird in der vorliegenden Arbeit festgestellt, dass der, in der Forschung festgelegten Stil Stamms bezüglich Zeit und Modus, im Weitesten auch in diesem Roman vorhanden ist. Insbesondere gilt dies für das genaue Erzählen und Auflisten, die häufig auftretenden Leerstellen, sowie die Zurückhaltung der Erzählinstanz.

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