Thesis (M.Dev.) --University of Limpopo, 2010 / The Kruger National Park is a world renowned organization and is rated as one of the best nature reserves in nature conservation in the world. Despite all the efforts made to control and protect nature in the Park, there is a need for the involvement of the community around the Park. Community-based conservation in particular has been subjected to a series of scathing criticisms, and it has become increasingly acceptable to advocate a return to more coercive forms of conservation. The establishment of the Park forum consisting of the neighbouring communities and the Park requires new strategies for better integration of conservation and rural development. The interest of conservation can be threatened by various factors, mainly poverty, poaching and wildlife conflicts. The interests of the population residing in the immediate neighbourhood of Kruger National Park can be threatened by proposed wildlife management options, other neighbouring conservation areas, and new tourist development activities. Effective conflict prevention mechanisms need to be developed together with the communities and especially in the implementation process. The study presents a critical analysis of the impact of the development made by the Park to the local communities. The available policies need to be implemented in order to assess their developmental impact they are making on the communities. The community has developed a negative attitude towards the park because they think the park is not doing enough in terms of development and training and skills development. The issue of a budget is a concern because it is not clear whether the park has a budget or not for the community. In as far as the community is concerned, there is no budget available and in as far as the park is concerned, the budget is available for community development. There is no cooperation between the park and the community. It seems the park is operating parallel to the community. There are a lot of uncertainties on the side of the community which has developed into mistrust. Communities like Makuleke are involved in farming such that some of the community members have got some subsistence farming skills. If training may be given to these people, most of them may begin to engage in commercial farming. There is also a strong feeling that the Hlanganani forum which represents the community is not recognized by the KNP management. It is there to fulfill the requirement of the policy. It became clearly that Kruger National Park does not involve the forum which has been formed to function as a link between the Park and the community. The negotiated partnership between the park and the community in terms of nature conservation is now at stake. The community is now more concerned about their safety and that of their livestock because of the wild animals roaming around day and night. This is a very serious problem which exists between the park and the community which in a way may hamper the progress in terms of sustaining the relationship currently being nurtured. It is recommended that the park management as the main active role player should put in place a good, viable and effective communication strategy which will form the basis of communication between the park and the community. This will assist both the park and the community to communicate the available developmental policies to the community. And if that is well communicated it is going to eliminate unnecessary conflict in terms of not knowing what the park has for the community and the policies available to address such developmental issues.

Thesis (M.A.(Educational Studies)) -- University of Limpopo, 2013 / A study was conducted to investigate the relationship between educational achievement (EA) and physical activity (PA) among rural secondary school learners based on the hypothesis that PA boasts educational achievement. The participants (n=275) (164 girls and 111 boys) aged 17-27 were selected from three rural high schools at Xihoko Circuit, Limpopo Province in South Africa. Due to mounting pressures to reach adequate yearly progress, many school officials view non-assessed activities like Physical Education (PE) and recess as unnecessary, consequently creating a case for the elimination of any subject that is not directly measured through standardized testing. This action ends up depriving learners of one of the elements that they need to do well in the classroom. Participation in PE has been found to have many benefits, such as, improved EA and health. This is the only subject that provides learners with an opportunity for PA after long hours of sitting. Most of the evidence linking PA to student achievement comes from studies looking at the impact of PE classes. Overall, there seems to be consensus among those who have studied the issue that reducing the amount of instructional time devoted to “academic” subjects in order to devote more time to PE does not harm students’ EA. On the contrary, schools that have reduced their PE time have not seen reliable improvements in student achievement. Finding a link between EA and PA may make educational leaders to re-evaluate time spent during the school day. In this study, data was collected for one month. PA data were collected by means of a self-report Youth Physical Activity Questionnaire (YPAQ), whereas data on EA were obtained through Mathematics and English tests scores. The University of Limpopo granted ethical clearance for the study and the permission to access schools was given by the Department of Education, Limpopo. Data was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 18. The results revealed a low positive correlation (r = .079) for English and (r = .086) for Mathematics. The null hypothesis was rejected as a results of the chi-square test outcome which revealed that at p< 0.05, df = 2, the c2 = 8.06 for Mathematics and c2 =147.2 for English. Since these values are greater than 5.99 chi-square statistical value, it means that the relationship between EA and PA exists, though non-significant. This has important implications for the introduction of PE in the school curriculum in the face of increasing sedentary life styles among young people and declining education performance that is plaguing our education system.

Caries of the pits and fissures of permanent teeth continues to be a problem for children. Newly erupted permanent molars are particularly at risk. Oral hygiene measures have been shown to be able to reduce the incidence of caries. The aim of this study was to compare the caries preventive effects of a professional tooth cleaning and oral health education programme (test) with a standard preventive programme (comparison), comprising selective fissure sealing and application of topical fluorides on newly erupted first permanent molars. School Dental Service clinics of the Health Department of Western Australia, in Perth, were assigned to test (4)or comparison (4) clinics. Schoolchildren, mean age 6.3 plus or minus 0.3 (s) yr with, sound, newly erupted first permanent molars were included in the study (n=404; 207 test; 197 control).Children were examined after twelve and twenty-four months by an examiner who was 'blind' to the test or control status of the children. After twelve months, 186 test and 163 control children were examined, and after twenty-four months, 179 test and 156 control children were examined. Three hundred and twenty children were examined in both years. After twenty-four months, 32 children in test and 31 children in control developed caries of the first permanent molars, the estimated risk ratio was 0.90 (95% CI 0.58, 1.41); and children in the test group had an average DFT score of 0.30 plus or minus 0.75 compared with 0.30 plus or minus 0.70 DFT in the control group (t-test, p=0.96). The results suggest that, after two years, there was no statistically significant difference between the caries preventive effects of a professional tooth cleaning and oral health education programme and a programme based on selective fissure sealing and application of topical fluorides.Baseline deciduous caries experience, presence of hypomineralised first ++ / permanent molars and frequency of toothbrushing were statistically significant factors in predicting molar caries. Using baseline deciduous caries experience as a screening criterion to predict permanent molar caries, sensitivity of 0.67 and specificity 0.61 were obtained at a cutpoint of 1 dmfs. Sensitivity and specificity values were maximised at 0.72 by using a combined baseline dmfs and hypomineralisation as screening criteria. Cost-effectiveness analysis indicated an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of $40/child/year. The test programme was more costly and produced similar outcomes and does not warrant adoption on economic grounds.

Burgeoning numbers of child abuse and neglect reports throughout the developed world has prompted calls for preventive and early intervention measures to support and prepare families for parenting. Nurse home visiting is one form of service delivery gaining acceptance as an appropriate strategy. Although home visiting is not a new concept in service delivery, enthusiasm for home-visitation programmes has re-emerged not only in Australia in recent years, but in many other developed countries with initiatives being launched or recommended at state, national and international levels. This thesis presents a review of the tenets of home visiting and examines a home visiting intervention programme targeting children born into families with child abuse or neglect risk factors. A randomised controlled trial using a cohort of 181 families was undertaken to evaluate the impact of this home visiting programme. Mothers were recruited in the immediate postnatal period and allocated either into the home visiting programme or into a comparison group. The research design required self-identification into the study by providing positive responses to a range of risk factors. This procedure was shown to have utility in the context of recruitment to a research trial, in that respondents were willing to disclose sensitive personal issues using this form of screening as the basis for targeted intervention. The home visiting programme examined by this study was also shown to have social validity, with mothers willing to accept this form of intervention from the immediate postnatal period. High retention and satisfaction rates strengthened this conclusion. The ability of this study to evaluate the effectiveness of the home visiting intervention programme may have been compromised by a range of contextual factors influencing programme outcomes detailed in this thesis. Nonetheless, the study found that, for a group of families reporting risk factors for child abuse and neglect potential, provision of an intensive home visiting intervention using nurses, social workers, and parent aides was not effective in producing more favourable adjustment to the parenting role over time compared with nonintervention or clinic based service provision. The intervention programme group participants gained knowledge of child development and child management skills during the early postnatal weeks while the comparison group participants developed knowledge and skills later in the first year of their infant's lift. Early adaptation to the parenting role, parenting knowledge, and skill acquisition bodes well for parent-infant attachment and the children's long-term health and developmental outcomes. However, a 12-month assessment of maternal, family, and child development variables did not demonstrate maintenance of a positive intervention impact on parenting stress, parenting competence, or quality of the home environment. Finally, predictive analysis of fictors measured in the immediate postnatal period revealed an absence of any predictive value to demographic characteristics, which secondary prevention efforts typically target. These results not only demonstrate that there is a relationship between maternal, family and enviromnental factors identified in the immediate postnatal period, and adjustment to the parenting role, but also challenge demographic targeting for child abuse and neglect risk. Findings are discussed and placed within the context of previous research and reference is made to implications for future child health practice, development, and research. Recommendations arising from this discussion relate to both future research and community child health practice.

Étude de la représentation, la structuration et l'utilisation de connaissances dans le cadre d'un projet de recherche en synthèse déductive de programmes. Les connaissances sont considérées comme des sous ensembles finis d'une théorie du premier ordre. Une attention particulière est prêtée au problème du guidage de l'utilisation des connaissances en synthèse de programmes

Présentation d'une approche déductive basée sur l'instantiation progressive de schémas de programmes fonctionnels. Un système formel de preuve est décrit dans lequel le lien entre schémas de programmes et schémas de propriétés est exhibe. La complétude relative et la correction de ce système sont prouvées notamment pour les fonctions partiellement définies. Des stratégies, guidées par l'utilisateur, sont ensuite proposées qui permettent de caractériser les propriétés nécessaires, propres à chaque schema, en termes de recherche de préconditions

Cette thµese est consacree à l'etude d'abstractions d'ensemble de traces adaptees µa l'analyse statique et aux transformations de programmes. Cette etude a ete menee dans le cadre de l'interpretation abstraite. Dans une premiµere partie, nous proposons un cadre general permettant de definir des analyses effectuant un partitionnement des traces. Cela permet en particulier d'utiliser des proprietes definies par l'histoire des executions, pou ecrire des disjonctions de proprietes abstraites utiles lors de l'analyse statique. Ainsi, nous obtenons des analyses plus efficaces, qui sont non seulement plus precises mais aussi plus rapides. La methode a ete implementee et eprouvee dans l'analyseur de code C Astree, et on obtient d'excellents resultats lors de l'analyse d'applications industrielles de grande taille. La seconde partie est consacree au developpement de methodes permettant d'automatiser le diagnostique des alarmes produites par un analyseur tel qu'Astree. En eff en raison de l'incompletude de l'analyseur, une alarme peut, soit reveler une veritable erreur dans le programme, soit provenir d'une imprecision de l'analyse. Nous proposons tout d'abord d'extraire des slices semantiques, c'est à ire des sous-ensembles de traces du programme, satisfaisant certaines conditions ; cette technique permet de mieux caracteriser le contexte d'une alarme et peut aider, soit àprouver l'alarme fausse, soit à montrer un veritable contexte d'erreur. Ensuite, nous definissons des familles d'analyses de dependances adaptees µa la recherche d'origine de comportements anormaux dans un programme, afin d'aider µa un diagnostique plus efficace des raisons d'une alarme. Les resultats lors de l'implementation d'un prototype sont encourageants. Enfin, dans la troisiµeme partie, nous definissons une formalisation generale de la compilation dans le cadre de l'interpretation abstraite et integrons diverses techniques de compilation certifiee dans ce cadre. Tout d'abord, nous proposons une methode fondee sur la traduction d'invariants obtenus lors d'une analyse du code source et sur la verification independante des invariants traduits. Ensuite, nous formalisons la methode de preuve d'equivalence, qui produit une preuve de correction de la compilation, en prouvant l'equivalence du programme compile et du programme source. Enfin, nous comparons ces methodes du point de vue theorique et µa l'aide de resultats experimentaux.

<p>This paper deals with the economic development of Tanzania and especially with the development of the smallholders. My aim is to study whether the Structural Adjustment Programmes have helped to facilitate growth in the agricultural and export-sector and if the reforms implemented through the programmes have made agricultural specialization easier and improved the economic situation for the smallholders.</p><p>In this paper, I will discuss that there might be significant limitations in the favours received due to SAP and that the Structural Adjustment Programmes because of this may not be the model for agricultural development as it is claimed by the initiators; the World Bank and the IMF. On the contrary, I present the idea that SAP can be said to have failed in its undertaking and that the reforms might not be suitable for the smallholder sector. I will in the paper argue that SAP has not facilitated an agricultural specialization and that this has much to do with the increase of production costs that the smallholders have been faced with after the reforms. And because of this it could be argued that the Structural Adjustment Programmes might not be an appropriate development strategy for Tanzania, if the country is to achieve growth through specialization. Consequently, there might be reason to believe that the reforms not are overall suitable for the Tanzanian development, considering that a growth within the agricultural smallholder sector is crucial for Tanzania to achieve a long term economic growth.</p>

This paper deals with the economic development of Tanzania and especially with the development of the smallholders. My aim is to study whether the Structural Adjustment Programmes have helped to facilitate growth in the agricultural and export-sector and if the reforms implemented through the programmes have made agricultural specialization easier and improved the economic situation for the smallholders. In this paper, I will discuss that there might be significant limitations in the favours received due to SAP and that the Structural Adjustment Programmes because of this may not be the model for agricultural development as it is claimed by the initiators; the World Bank and the IMF. On the contrary, I present the idea that SAP can be said to have failed in its undertaking and that the reforms might not be suitable for the smallholder sector. I will in the paper argue that SAP has not facilitated an agricultural specialization and that this has much to do with the increase of production costs that the smallholders have been faced with after the reforms. And because of this it could be argued that the Structural Adjustment Programmes might not be an appropriate development strategy for Tanzania, if the country is to achieve growth through specialization. Consequently, there might be reason to believe that the reforms not are overall suitable for the Tanzanian development, considering that a growth within the agricultural smallholder sector is crucial for Tanzania to achieve a long term economic growth.

The television industry in Lithuania is analyzed in this thesis with a focus on the impact of commercialization on the public service broadcaster. The purpose of the research paper is to describe the impact of the changing market on the public service broadcaster of Lithuania using as theoretical framework the approach of the political economy of the media and communication and quantitative methods. One part of the thesis is the theoretical research, which is done by analyzing and systematically presenting books and articles that relate to the thesis’s topic. In the second part of the work, the theoretical framework is applied to the Lithuanian television market. In addition, an empirical study is conducted in order to apply the theoretical discussion and answer the main research question. The main results of the study suggest that the public service broadcaster of Lithuania managed to maintain its programmes’ diversity. However, the amount of entertainment, imported production and advertising has increased. Therefore, a certain concern about growing commercialization is reasonable. These changes correspond to the tendencies in the European television industry. However, Lithuanian viewers seem to prefer the more heavily commercialized programmes since the leader of the market is a commercial television station, whose market share is almost twice bigger than LTV’s. Thus, LTV is facing a dilemma between preserving quality and diversity and commercializing its programmes in order to increase its audience share (dilemma between quality and audience share).