This dissertation analyses the role of industrial mediation within the framework of the relationship between the underlying causes of industrial conflict and the resolution of this conflict. The inextricable relationship between economics and politics means that the underlying causes of industrial conflict need to be located within both the socio-political arena and in the contradictions within the labour process. The Independent Mediation Service of South Africa (IMSSA) has played a crucial role in facilitating the institutionalisation of extra statutory or independent industrial mediation in response to the changing nature of industrial relations in the country. IMSSA is rooted in the pluralist approach to industrial relations. Pluralism is rejected in this dissertation for its implicit acceptance of the existing socio-political status quo and for its belief in the legitimacy of the social system as a fair and democratic one. Thus, a critical question in this research is what is the role of mediation if pluralism is rejected as a starting point for analysis? A distinction is drawn between manifest and latent conflict in this dissertation. The primary hypothesis, which is confirmed, is that mediation addresses the manifest, rather than the latent conflict. This challenges the claim of the problem-solving approach of mediation that the process uncovers the underlying conflict. Instead, this research reveals that mediation is dispute-specific and has the potential for solving the immediate conflict, rather than removing the fundamental sources of this conflict. Further, the role of mediation is limited by the very nature of the collective bargaining process which restricts the expression of the latent conflict. It is argued that, although mediation may be accused of palliating the conflict in the sense that it settles the dispute without addressing the structural causes of the conflict, mediation plays a significant role in the collective bargaining process. This is revealed in the role that mediation plays in improving bargaining skills, empowering the weaker party, legitimising the negotiating parties, educating the parties, overcoming mistrust and promoting understanding between adversaries. Thus, mediation has the potential for significantly affecting the working relationship and altering the dynamics of this relationship in terms of enhancing the essential relationship-building dimension of this relationship and facilitating an approach to bargaining in good faith. The effects of mediation therefore extend beyond the immediate conflict settlement. Mediation is not a response to procedural inadequacies and the utilisation of this process does not reflect inadequate negotiation skills. Instead, the increasing number of industrial mediations may be seen to be a reflection of more sophisticated industrial relations which reveal an acknowledgement of the need to compromise as a prerequisite for successful collective bargaining. Research was conducted and hypotheses tested through primary research which involved interviews with leading management representatives and trade unionists in the Cape Town and Port Elizabeth-Uitenhage regions and mediators in these two areas as well as in Johannesburg and Pretoria. Interviews were conducted oh an open-ended, but structured basis. The two primary regions were chosen for their representation of different trends in the utilisation of industrial mediation. FOcus in the Port Elizabeth-Uitenhage region centred on why mediation has been utilised relatively less frequently in this region than elsewhere in the country. It was found that, although specific forces have shaped the unique nature of collective bargaining in this region, the attitude towards mediation arose not from more militant or confrontational policies, but from a number of misperceptions and faulty assumptions concerning the process and role of mediation.

This paper discusses whether the disciplinary process in public high schools in South Africa achieves the purpose envisioned in the Schools Act. The purpose is to establish a disciplined schooling environment in which learners take responsibility for their behaviour and promote self-discipline. To establish positive discipline. However, according to research, the current disciplinary process has failed to teach learners about responsibility and self-discipline. This paper. through literature review, analyses the challenges in the current laws relating to school discipline. The first challenge is that the current disciplinary proceeding is retributive and adversarial. This is not in line with positive discipline. The second challenge is that suspensions are not in the best interest of the child. Thus, to address these challenges, consideration is given to the inclusion of peer mediation into the high school disciplinary process. Peer mediation has been successfully integrated in New Zealand and the United States and has resulted in an improved sense of responsibility and a positive school environment. Thus, it is argued that integrating peer mediation as a preliminary step in the high school disciplinary process would help teach learners responsibility and self-discipline.

No / Since the end of the Cold War, conflict prevention and resolution, peacekeeping and peacebuilding have risen to the top of the international agenda. The second edition of this hugely popular text charts the development of the field from its pioneers to its contemporary exponents and offers an assessment of its achievements and the challenges it faces in today's changed security environment. Existing material has been thoroughly updated and new chapters added on peacebuilding from below, reconciliation, responses to terror, gender issues, the ethics of intervention, dialogue, discourse and disagreement, culture and conflict resolution, and future directions for the field. the authors argue that a new form of cosmopolitan conflict resolution is emerging, which offers a hopeful means for human societies to transcend and celebrate their differences. - Polity Press

As the volume of data on the Web or in databases increases, data integration is becoming more expensive and challenging than ever before. One of the challenges is entity resolution when integrating data from different sources. References with different representations but referring to the same underlying entity need to be resolved. And, references with similar descriptions but referring to different entities need to be distinguished from one another. Correctly de-duplicating and disambiguating these entities is an essential task in preparing high quality data. Traditional approaches mainly focus on the attribute similarity of references, but they do not always work for datasets with insufficient information. However, in relational datasets like social networks, references are always associated with one or more relationships and these relationships can provide additional information for identifying duplicates. In this thesis, we solve the entity resolution problem by using relationships in the relational datasets. We implement a relational entity resolution algorithm to resolve entities based on an existing algorithm, greatly improving its efficiency and performance. Also, we generalize the single-type entity resolution algorithm to a multi-type entity resolution algorithm for applications that require to resolve multiple types of reference simultaneously and demonstrate its advantage over the single-type entity resolution algorithm. To improve the efficiency of the entity resolution process, we implement two blocking approaches to reduce the number of redundant comparisons performed by other methods. In addition, we implement a disk-based clustering algorithm that addresses the scalability problem, and apply it on a large academic social network dataset.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2009. / Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 267-299).

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Thesis (LL.M.)--University of Alberta, 2010. / Title from PDF file main screen (viewed on Apr. 12, 2010). "A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Laws in Dispute Resolution Faculty of Law, Spring 2010, Edmonton, Alberta ... University of Alberta." Includes bibliographical references.

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With an escalating skiing tourism industry where tourists are getting bolder every year in theirsearch for untouched snow, avalanche prediction gets more and more important. Avalancheprediction is often designated manual labour and many years of establishing avalanchedatabases. With GIS and high resolution DEM data it is possible to identify areas withavalanche danger over large areas at low costs. Using parameters as: roughness, inclination,curvature and vegetation models like the ones tested in this study can predict potential releaseareas (PRA). The results that the models present needs to be validated. This can be done eitherby manual labour by avalanche experts or by comparing the results at a validated resolutionfrom another area with avalanche databases. The present study is testing two PRA identifyingmodels on different DEM resolutions trying to identify if higher resolutions yields better resultsthan lower or vice versa. The validation of the results was a challenge, because of the lack ofavalanche databases in Sweden. In this study a 5 m resolution DEM and a model set updeveloped for Davos in Switzerland, was used as a as a reference model. The results showsthat a DEM with a high resolution of 2x2m do not identify PRAs (potential release areas) asgood as the resampled resolutions of 5x5m or 25x25m.

No description available.