Thesis (M Speech Path)--University of Stellenbosch, 2011. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study investigated the effect of two shared-reading intervention programmes on the narratives of 87 Afrikaans-speaking Grade R learners from low income families. Intervention Programme I involved an interactive style where participants were encouraged to engage spontaneously in conversations about the characters’ intentions and goals, to make inferences and to ask questions. Intervention Programme II focused on observable entities and the content of the storybooks. Participants’ narratives were compared before and after intervention in terms of productivity, content and structure. Results indicated that (i) both methods of shared-reading improved the participants’ narratives in terms of productivity, number of different words, and the efficiency of references; (ii) only Intervention Programme I improved the participants’ narratives in terms of the percentage meta-verbs, number of key elements and Goal-Attempt-Outcome sequences included. Clinical implications and recommendations for future research are discussed. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie studie het die effek van twee gedeelde-leesintervensieprogramme op die narratiewe van 87 Afrikaanssprekende Graad R-leerders vanuit lae-inkomstegesinne ondersoek. Intervensieprogram I het ‘n interaktiewe styl behels, waartydens deelnemers aangemoedig is om spontaan aan gesprekke deel te neem oor die karakters se motiverings en doelwitte, afleidings oor die stories te maak en vrae te vra. Intervensieprogram II het op die waarneembare feite en inhoud van die storieboeke gefokus. Deelnemers se narratiewe is voor en na afloop van die intervensie ten opsigte van produktiwiteit, inhoud en struktuur vergelyk. Resultate het aangedui dat (i) beide metodes van gedeelde-lees die deelnemers se narratiewe ten opsigte van produktiwiteit, totale aantal verskillende woorde, en doeltreffendheid van verwysings verbeter het; (ii) slegs Intervensieprogram I daarin geslaag het om deelnemers se insluiting van die persentasie meta-werkwoorde, aantal sleutelelemente en Doel-Poging-Uitkomsreekse in hul narratiewe te verbeter. Kliniese implikasies en aanbevelings vir toekomstige navorsing word bespreek.

published_or_final_version / Electrical and Electronic Engineering / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

<p>The aim of this work is to define the party structure of Feministic Initiative (FI). We want to examine the structure of an organization that doesn’t start out with a hierarchical order. We further intend to examine the party’s leadership; whether or not it is equal, between the three spokespersons.We find it interesting as a topic from a democratic point of view as well as to see if a flat structure could work in practice. We use several theories among them Michel’s “iron law of oligarchy” and Holmberg’s and Söderlind’s theory on flat organizations. There is modest research on leadership in Swedish political science; we therefore consider it important to highlight. Shared leadership is interesting to examine, for it might be an alternative to the traditional order.We use a mixed-methodology based upon qualitative interviews and text analysis. We have interviewed the three spokespersons and examined materials like official weekly letters written by the spokespersons and the party’s constitution.The result shows that a flat structure is hard to carry out in practise and it appears that some form of hierarchical order appears in the party structure. Despite efforts towards equality the shared leadership is not totally equal.</p>

This research study is based on the cluster system model for effective management of schools in Namibia. with special reference to Erongo Education Region. The cluster system introduces a new perspective on the way the schools arc managed. It radically differs from the historically isolated school, employing individualistic approaches and management practices characterised by strong hierarchical structures and top down decision-making. The cluster system advocates shared decision-making, teamwork, collaboration. integration and networking. In other words clustering provides a superb climate for teachers, principals, parents and learners to interface with one another within a legitimate framework. Clustering is an effective management model that has also been implemented in developed countries such as England, the Netherlands and the United States of America. The research study involved 60 principals as respondents to a questionnaire on the cluster system, its problems and prospects. The major findings indicate that clustering enhances the quality of education through sharing of resources, exchange of ideas among teachers, and closer cooperation between schools. The study identifies numerous challenges in the implementation of the cluster system. These challenges include disparity between schools in the rural and urban areas, lack of reliable transport, lack of facilities and teaching materials in most schools, large distances between schools, teacher isolation and increased workload among personnel. However, if the challenges and prospects of clustering are put on a simple scale, the latter would probably outweigh the former completely. This means that clustering holds encouraging prospects for the education system in Namibia in general and Erongo Education Region in particular. An important finding in this regard is that the majority of the principals in the Erongo Education Region agree that the cluster system has the potential to champion and transcend in effective management of all schools within cluster centres. / Thesis (M.Ed.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.

Distributed shared memory (DSM) systems have been recognised as a compelling platform for parallel computing due to the programming advantages and scalability. DSM systems allow applications to access data in a logically shared address space by abstracting away the distinction of physical memory location. As the location of data is transparent, the sources of overhead caused by accessing the distant memories are difficult to analyse. This memory locality problem has been identified as crucial to DSM performance. Many researchers have investigated the problem using simulation as a tool for conducting experiments resulting in the progressive evolution of DSM systems. Nevertheless, both the diversity of architectural configurations and the rapid advance of DSM implementations impose constraints on simulation model designs in two issues: the limitation of the simulation framework on model extensibility and the lack of verification applicability during a simulation run causing the delay in verification process. This thesis studies simulation modelling techniques for memory locality analysis of various DSM systems implemented on top of a cluster of symmetric multiprocessors. The thesis presents a simulation technique to promote model extensibility and proposes a technique for verification applicability, called a Specification-based Parameter Model Interaction (SPMI). The proposed techniques have been implemented in a new interpretation-driven simulation called DSiMCLUSTER on top of a discrete event simulation (DES) engine known as HASE. Experiments have been conducted to determine which factors are most influential on the degree of locality and to determine the possibility to maximise the stability of performance. DSiMCLUSTER has been validated against a SunFire 15K server and has achieved similarity of cache miss results, an average of +-6% with the worst case less than 15% of difference. These results confirm that the techniques used in developing the DSiMCLUSTER can contribute ways to achieve both (a) a highly extensible simulation framework to keep up with the ongoing innovation of the DSM architecture, and (b) the verification applicability resulting in an efficient framework for memory analysis experiments on DSM architecture.

Knowledge integration is rather a new and not fully explored  concept in  business management. However there are many scholars, who have  researched knowledge integration in recent decades. This thesis is conducted in order to draw attention towards knowledge integration and its processual phenomena. Moreover, some scholars have mentioned that knowledge integration is dynamic. The dynamics of knowledge integration lead to the fact that the actual knowledge integration process is also dynamic and constituted of performance practices, while being dependent on different factors and conditions. In further understanding, knowledge ingratiation process cannot be implemented in a straight forward lineal fashion. For this reason it changes during the time of the knowledge integration project implementation. The interest of this research is to find out how does the knowledge integration process change during the evolution ofproject. For this purpose, we have researched a real company’s project, the objective of which is to reach the knowledge integration amongst different back office teams in a newly established Shared Service Centre (SSC). The study led us through the discovery of different aspects of knowledge integration process, including challenges that occur during its implementation and mechanisms that are adopted as the project evolves. The analysis of existent theory and practical interpretation of the company’s project allowed us to conduct a visualization of the change of knowledge integration process. This visualization summarizes the occurrence of knowledge integration challenges, which call the company management to alternate different performance practices in combination with the use of practice-based coordination’s. In this essence it becomes visible, that as project evolves, the process of knowledge integration adopts a non-lineal progression. This in later perspective builds a reason to argue that the more knowledge is integrated more challenges occur in this integration process and as a result more mechanism are needed to be adopted to sustain successful knowledge integration in the project.

The aim of this research programme was to explore ehealth technology in pharmacy practice in Scotland and, by doing so, contribute original knowledge to this area. Strategists worldwide believe technology has the potential to promote quality, safety and efficiency in healthcare. This has been reflected in national ehealth policies designed to support collaborative working between medical and non-medical healthcare practitioners and, more recently, the whole health and social care team. A meta-narrative systematic review was conducted to explore and contextualise research related to healthcare professionals’ views of the adoption of ehealth technologies to support shared care. Findings indicate the importance of organisational development and training for core and optional ehealth services with pharmacists particularly under-represented in ehealth research. Socio-technical systems theory and the computer supported cooperative working framework were adopted to explore healthcare practitioners’ perceptions of ehealth in relation to integrated care. Findings from the review indicate ehealth research continues to focus on doctors and nurses. No ehealth application was perceived to be an unqualified success with the socio-technical gap still evident. Multiple case studies were conducted to develop explanatory theory around the digital literacy experiences, education and training related needs of pharmacy staff in the NHS Grampian area. Digital literacy levels were self-reported as basic with mixed views on the need for formal education and training. Findings indicate organisational and social factors may act as restraining forces against implementation of technology in pharmacy and associated digital literacy training. A final theory testing, systematic review was conducted into digital literacy training experiences of pharmacy staff applying Kirkpatrick’s four level model. It found a lack of evidence of specific, measurable digital literacy levels but indications that suggest digital literacy should be included in pharmacy education at all levels and career stages. This research provides novel insight into ehealth and digital literacy in pharmacy practice. Combined ehealth, education and pharmacy research has been demonstrated to be an under-researched area therefore these findings contribute original knowledge.

Pediatric medicine, the branch of medicine dedicated to taking care of children, is a relatively new medical specialty, developing in the mid-19th century. Pediatrics emerged as society began to believe that children were different from adults and in need of specialized care. Soon after the development of specialty medicine for children it became evident that many challenging ethical issues were present with children that did not exist, or at least not to the same extent with adults. In some cases, issues are similar, however they become much more complex or challenging when applied to children. The field of pediatrics is constantly changing and developing, with tremendous advancements within the fields of genetics, neuroscience, and clinical research. Developments in these fields have led to the emergence of many new diagnostic and therapeutic interventions for children, but with these new technologies come enhanced ethical issues and challenging decisions. Currently within pediatric medicine, decision-making processes are primarily guided by the models of adult surrogate decision making, in particular substituted judgment and best interests models. The substituted judgment model focuses on executing the wishes of the patient, while best interests asks the surrogate to select the course of action that will most benefit the patient overall. These models are ethically contested within adult medicine, the field in which they originated, and are even more problematic when applied to children, specifically mature minors with varying developmental levels. In pediatrics, the best interests standard is the typical model advocated for because children, as children, cannot legally make their own decisions, however that does not mean they should be automatically excluded from decision making processes or assumed to lack decision making capacity. These issues become larger when dealing with mature minors due to issues of agency, consent and assent, stewardship, and the vulnerable status of the child. Children are not only viewed as vulnerable by society, but many times parents as well. Many parents feel it is their obligation and duty to not only take care of their children but also advocate for and protect them. Additionally, because they are so emotionally invested and connected to the child, it is difficult to comprehend situations where the child is at risk or they are told something they never imagined or thought about, such as that their child is very sick and in need of advanced medical care. There are heightened emotions present due to the parent-child relationship. Despite parents wanting to protect their children, in most medical instances they are unable to do so, leaving parents vulnerable and full of emotion. Making decisions for another is very challenging in all instances throughout medicine, complicated even more so when the person for whom decisions are being made is a relative and a person that one strives to protect and take care of on a day to day basis. Additionally in pediatrics many decisions have higher stakes and longer impacts, due to the age, status, and development of the child. Parents are in very challenging positions when making decisions for their children in light of the tremendous amounts of uncertainty that accompany new and emerging technologies, including obstacles that make determining the child’s best interests and inevitably make a decision challenging. The addition of complicated medical information from presented by the new technologies within the fields of genetics, neuroscience, and clinical research, combined with the and heightened emotions only complicates this process, necessitating an enhanced decision making model. &lt;br&gt;As in areas of adult medicine, decisions are challenging and difficult to work through, complicated more by the lacking of explicit goals of pediatric medicine and an overarching framework to use to structure all decision making processes, which exists in adult medicine. The current decision-making models do not accommodate the fact that within pediatrics there is a long term relationship and partnership that must be created and nurtured by all those involved; decisions are therefore not isolated decisions but components of a continuum. Additionally, they do not ensure that parents receive support and guidance, identify the level of involvement of an older child, or facilitate and assist with decisions when parents and physicians disagree. Along with some of the objective elements of medicine, pediatric decision making has many subjective components, and emerging technologies create even more. On the basis of these considerations, it is argued that there is a need for an enhanced decision making model developed out of the field of pediatrics, centered around the goals of pediatric medicine. Current models need to be reconsidered in order to outline a model that enables parents to make the optimal decision for their child in light of the possibilities of emerging technologies. &lt;br&gt;This dissertation will look at the question “Why should an enhanced model for parental decision making be advocated for within pediatric care, and how can such a model be developed and applied?” In Chapter 2 the history and development of the field of pediatrics will be looked at, followed by an analysis of the current decision making models of adult medicine in Chapter 3, demonstrating that they do not apply well to mature minors and are not sufficient for pediatric medicine. In Chapter 4 the changing field of pediatric medicine will be explained, the new technologies will be introduced, and the ethical issues that the current models of decision making do not accommodate will be presented. In Chapter 5, an enhanced model of shared decision making related to the goals of pediatric medicine will be developed followed by an analysis of the roles of parties involved and how they should work together to achieve the best results for the child who is the patient. In chapter 6 the enhanced decision making model will be applied to areas of genetic screening, neuroscience, and clinical research to show how it will better facilitate decisions within these areas and address the concerns that the new technologies and developments create throughout present-day pediatrics. Pediatric medicine is in great need of an enhanced parental decision-making model that addresses the goals of pediatric medicine to ensure that the best decisions are made in the face of new technologies and the continuous advancement of care for children. / McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts; / Health Care Ethics / PhD; / Dissertation;

Providing a consistent view of the shared memory based on precise and well-defined semantics—memory consistency model—has been an enabling factor in the widespread acceptance and commercial success of shared-memory architectures. Moreover, cache coherence protocols have been employed by the hardware to remove from the programmers the burden of dealing with the memory inconsistency that emerges in the presence of the private caches. The principle behind all such cache coherence protocols is to guarantee that consistent values are read from the private caches at all times. In its most stringent form, a cache coherence protocol eagerly enforces two invariants before each data modification: i) no other core has a copy of the data in its private caches, and ii) all other cores know where to receive the consistent data should they need the data later. Nevertheless, by partly transferring the responsibility for maintaining those invariants to the programmers, commercial multicores have adopted weaker memory consistency models, namely the Total Store Order (TSO), in order to optimize the performance for more common cases. Moreover, memory models with more relaxed invariants have been proposed based on the observation that more and more software is written in compliance with the Data-Race-Free (DRF) semantics. The semantics of DRF software can be leveraged by the hardware to infer when data in the private caches might be inconsistent. As a result, hardware ignores the inconsistent data and retrieves the consistent data from the shared memory. DRF semantics therefore removes from the hardware the burden of eagerly enforcing the strong consistency invariants before each data modification. Instead, consistency is guaranteed only when needed. This results in manifold optimizations, such as reducing the energy consumption and improving the performance and scalability. The efficiency of detecting and discarding the inconsistent data is an important factor affecting the efficiency of such coherence protocols. For instance, discarding the consistent data does not affect the correctness, but results in performance loss and increased energy consumption. In this thesis we show how data classification can be leveraged as an effective tool to simplify the cache coherence based on the DRF semantics. In particular, we introduce simple but efficient hardware-based private/shared data classification techniques that can be used to efficiently detect the inconsistent data, thus enabling low-overhead and scalable cache coherence solutions based on the DRF semantics.

The aim of this thesis is to explore how professionals working in a French community association perceived the notion of spirituality and a shared life practice, and furthermore what contributions and limits these concepts have in the social work. To attain this, a case study has been done using participant observations and four thematically opened interviews within a L'arche community where persons with varying disabilities are living together with professional assistants. To put the association in a theoretical framework, I propose it to be regarded as a case of milieu therapy with spiritual elements, which are the two areas that will be stressed out in the section about previous research. The theories used in the study are ecological system theory, existentialism and Roger's theory about interpersonal relationships. The result of the thesis illustrate how the notion of a shared life practice has good contributions in the social work, such as equal and personal relationships between the members of the community and furthermore a notion of time that makes the work unstressful and natural as a result of the communal living. However, a limit discovered regarding this practice is the exposed and tiering situation for the assistants that hinder a longterm work in the community for most assistants. Another finding is that the spiritual dimension in the community makes way for a holistic view of everyone and contributes with rituals that create strong moments of fellowship within the community, at the same time it risks to make people who regard themselves as non-spiritual not to feel totally included.