Military Preparedness in a New Security Environment: The Canadian Army Reserve's Contribution to Public Safety and Domestic Security addresses the Reserve's response to Canada's domestic security needs in the current security environment. The security environment is evolving, which has led to increasing constraints and the search for evolving security solutions for Western national governments, including a greater use of the Reserve. However, certain tensions inhibit the twin-track contributions of the Reserve to both domestic and international operations, arising from issues such as role definition, buy-in, and resource commitment. The "Canadian solution" o f having the Reserve "muddle through" these issues and follow both roles will inevitably need to change if the Reserve is to effectively serve Canadians in the future, be that internationally or domestically. The methods employed include the analysis of existing literature addressing the evolving security environment, concepts of civil-military relations, and recent Canadian national security policies, combined with a presentation of the Army Reserve, and a comparative study with key Commonwealth counterparts. Thus, at a conceptual level, at the Canadian level, and at the level of Canada's international partners, it became apparent that there are tensions between a domestic and international role for the Reserve which could create problems for the Reserve's future. In practice, the methodology consisted of the analysis of academic and government primary and secondary sources as well as drawing upon the author's interviews with individuals of relevant expertise or experience. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate

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Master of Science

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Maximum physical performance tests appear to best reflect athletes’ training status and readiness to perform; however, it is unfeasible for practitioners to implement physical performance tests while trying to minimise the effects of fatigue during training. Subjective self-reported well-being measures have therefore been purported as a tool for monitoring athletes’ readiness to perform without exertion. The purpose of the current study was to establish the nature and strength of the relationship between changes in physical performance test scores and changes in well-being scores in student soccer players. For the purpose of this investigation, the physical performance test scores (jump height (JH), 10 m and 40 m sprint tests, 5-0-5 and YO-YO) and well-being scores (fatigue, energy, stress, motivation, soreness, sleep and total well-being score (TWS)) were collected for 48 male student soccer players at three time points (testing observation one: T1; testing observation two: T2; testing observation three: T3) over a period of two weeks in order to assess percentage change scores for physical performance test scores and well-being scores between T1 and T2, T2 and T3, and T1 and T3. Once percentage change scores (physical performance test scores and well-being scores) for each comparative pair of testing observations were calculated, Spearman’s rank order correlation coefficients (r) were calculated to evaluate the nature and strength of the relationships between changes in well-being scores and physical performance test scores. The principal findings of this study were that over two weeks of training, improved JH was associated with better motivation and worse fatigue, soreness and TWS. Faster 10 m and 40 m sprint times were associated with worse energy, stress, sleep and TWS. Faster 5-0-5 time was associated with worse fatigue, stress, sleep and TWS. Longer YO-YO distance was associated with worse motivation, stress, sleep and TWS. However, in many instances, correlations between physical performance test scores and well-being scores were small to trivial. Numerous contradicting correlations were also found across all comparative pairs of testing observations. The take-home message of this study is that subjective measures of well-being may not be purported as good measures for assessing athletes’ readiness to perform. Thus, physical performance tests are the ultimate indicator of athletes’ readiness to perform in this regard. Our findings suggest that during pre-season, worse well-being may be reported; however, athletes’ readiness to perform may not be negatively affected. Coaches and sport scientists should consider measuring both subjective self-reported measures of well-being and physical performance tests as these measures appear to be assessing two separate concepts. / Dissertation (MSc (Sport Science))--University of Pretoria, 2019. / Physiology / MSc (Sport Science) / Unrestricted

Magister Artium - MA (Psychology) / In recent years, the global focus on Early Child Development (ECD) has delivered mounting evidence of it being one of the most rewarding areas of investment a country can make. A central outcome of quality ECD is to provide sufficient support to enable a child to arrive at Grade 1 ready to learn. Environmental factors impacting on child development and school readiness have thus been under increasing scrutiny. Although studies have delivered evidence of fathers' unique contribution to ECD, fathers' impact on a child's school readiness is often overlooked. The overall aim of this thesis was to report on the findings of the exploratory investigation on fathers' perspectives of school readiness. All relevant ethics principles were observed in the study. The study received ethics clearance from the Senate Research Committee (HS/16/5/41). The study followed an explorative design incorporating qualitative methodologies for data collection and analysis. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a sample of nine fathers residing in Cape Town, who had full parental rights and responsibilities for their child in Grade R. Thematic analysis produced three themes with subthemes. The core findings suggested that first, fathers did not have a good fund of knowledge about school readiness and child development. Personal context and subjective experiences impacted or informed their views and beliefs about school readiness. Second, feedback from teachers and professionals was highly valued and was a primary source of information about their children's school readiness. Third, facilitating school readiness involved different systems and role players of which fathers are important role players. It emerged that in some ways the role of fathers remains undervalued and in others, fathers' ability to participate is diminished due to their fund of knowledge, gendered patterns to child rearing and engagement with school systems.

Digital Forensic investigations play a vital role in our technologically enhanced world, and it may incorporate a number of different types of evidence — ranging from digital to physical. During a Digital Forensics investigation an investigator may formulate a number of hypotheses, and in order to reason objectively about them, an investigator must take into account such evidence in its entirety, relying on multiple sources. When formulating such objective reasoning an investigator must take into account not only inculpatory evidence but also exculpatory evidence and evidence of tampering. In addition, the investigator must factor in the reliability of the evidence used, the potential for error (tool and human based) and they must factor in the certainty with which they can make various claims. By doing so and creating a detailed audit trail of all actions performed by the investigator they can be better prepared against challenges against their work when it is presented. An investigator must also take into account the dynamic aspects of an investigation, such as certain evidence no longer being admissible, and they must continuously factor these aspects into their reasoning, to ensure that their conclusions still hold. Investigations may draw over a large period of time, and should the relevant information not be captured in detail, it may be lost or forgotten, affecting the reliability of an investigator’s findings and affecting future investigators’ capability to build on and continue an investigator’s work. In this dissertation we investigate whether it is possible to provide a formalised means for capturing and encoding an investigator’s reasoning process, in a detailed and structured manner. By this we mean we would like to capture and encode an investigator’s hypotheses, their arguments, their conclusions and the certainty with which they can make such claims, as well as the various pieces of evidence (digital and physical) that they use as a foundation for their arguments. We also want to capture the steps an investigator took when formulating these arguments and the steps an investigator took in order to get evidence into its intended form. The capturing of such a detailed reasoning process helps to allow for a more thorough reconstruction of an investigator’s finding, further improving the reliability that can be placed in them. By encoding the investigator’s reasoning process, an investigator can more easily receive feedback on the impacts that the various dynamic aspects of an investigation have upon their reasoning. In order to achieve these goals, our dissertation presents a model, called the Chain of Findings, allowing investigators to formulate and capture their reasoning process throughout the investigation, using a combination of goal-driven and data-driven approaches. When formulating their reasoning, the model allows investigators to treat evidence, digital and physical, uniformly as building blocks for their arguments and capture detailed information of how and why they serve their role in an investigator’s reasoning process. In addition, the Chain of Findings offers a number of other uses and benefits including the training of investigators and Digital Forensic Readiness. / Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / gm2014 / Computer Science / unrestricted

This dissertation includes three papers. Using two nationally representative datasets – Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 (ECLS-K: 1998) and 2010-11 (ECLS-K: 2010) – the first paper examines changes in disparities in school readiness by parental education from 1998 to 2010 in the United States. Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition analysis is used for investigating if financial resources, in- and out-of-home environment and activities, parenting, and child care contributed to these disparities differently in 2010 compared to 1998. The second paper follows the achievement trajectories of these two cohorts of kindergarteners and studies how school readiness disparities by parental education changed in 2010 compared to 1998 when children progressed through third grade. Using hierarchical linear modeling with piecewise spline function, it also estimates the roles of family and school factors at kindergarten in predicting school achievement growth rates for these two cohorts and compares to examine if there is any change in these roles. Since the content and data collection procedures of the two ECLS-K cohort datasets are very similar, the second paper pools these two datasets and uses interaction terms to examine the changes, providing more precise estimation. The third paper pools the China Family Panel Study (CFPS) 2010 and 2014 and investigates disparities in vocabulary and math by parental education and the roles of parenting and home environment in explaining and accounting for these disparities in China. Besides the whole sample, analysis is also conducted for the subsamples of children in rural, urban, and migrant settings due to different economic and cultural factors in these settings.

Magister Pharmaceuticae - MPharm / This study aimed to review the change management implemented in a Biopharmaceutical company in Cape Town in the light of existing literature on change management theory. Three main constructs were identified: process of change, readiness for change and climate of change. A quantitative pencil-and-paper survey were used to explore and describe employee experience of the change management process within a single department of a biopharmaceutical company in Cape Town. Cronbach alpha coefficient confirmed internal reliability (α = 0.94) of the questionnaire constructs. Employees across all ages reported average scores for all constructs (M ≥ 2.5 < 4), indicating a similar experience regardless of age. A medium-strong positive correlation (p < 0.01; r = 0.49) was observed between process of change and climate of change.