A research report submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management of the University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree Master of Laws in Labour Law, 2018 / The right to strike is entrenched in the Constitutions of both South Africa (the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa 1996,) and Zimbabwe (The Constitution of the Republic of Zimbabwe Act 20 of 2013 as amended). There has been some significant labour law reforms in Southern Africa particularly in Zimbabwe where the right to strike was constitutionally provided for in 2013. Despite the entrenchment of the right to strike in the Constitutions of South Africa and Zimbabwe, there are limitations to this right to strike. It is submitted that workers have rights to strike within the limits of the law but the reality on the ground gives a different picture. While this thesis subscribes to the right of workers to strike, it also argues that the rights of other parties are as important as the rights of the striking workers. In South Africa there is an entrenched culture of violence within industrial action in this constitutional dispensation era.1 In Zimbabwe strike action is severely restricted through various mechanisms like the Public order and Security Act (POSA) 2007.2 An application letter must be sent to the police so that they can grant clearance for the strike. The only notable strikes that were allowed with minimal police intervention was the National Railways of Zimbabwe strike where workers had not been paid their salaries for 15 months3 and that of the Grain Marketing Board where workers had not been paid for more than 24 months.4 There are significant similarities and disparities on how the Labour Relations Act South Africa and the Labour Act Zimbabwe regulate strike actions. It is also apparent that there are inadequacies in the two Acts and that will require some legislative reforms to remedy incidents of unprotected or unlawful strike action. / XL2019

The rise of competitive e-sports and its increasing popularity with several million players worldwide across various games has sparked an interest in the cognitive abilities associated with it. This study aimed to investigate if there is a relationship between competitive play and an increase in cognitive ability, as measured by performance in cognitive tasks. The research question focuses on whether or not players who dedicate a significant amount of time playing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CSGO) to compete on a higher level will perform better in cognitive tasks than non-competitive players. In this differential study with a between-group design, a total of 24 participants participated, with 12 in each group. Data for cognitive abilities were measured by performance across a battery of cognitive tests consisting of the Iowa Gambling Task, Inhibition of Return, Multitasking, and the Tower of Hanoi, with the latter acting as a control for general cognitive ability. All data were gathered online. Results show that competitive players performed significantly better in the multitasking task than their non-competitive counterparts. Furthermore, there seems to be no significant difference overall in general cognitive ability or for the other tasks. This finding suggests that the competitive environment of CSGO may be effective for increased performance in some cognitive tasks like multitasking. However, this might not be true regarding other cognitive abilities such as decision-making.

The kinematic evolution and along-strike variation in contractional deformation in overthrust belts are poorly understood, especially in three dimensions. The Sevier-age Cordilleran overthrust belt of southwestern Wyoming, with its abundance of subsurface data, provides an ideal laboratory to study how this deformation varies along the strike of the belt. We have performed a detailed structural interpretation of dual vergent thrusts based on a 3D seismic survey along the Wyoming salient of the Cordilleran overthrust belt (Big Piney-LaBarge field). The complex evolution of the thrust faults that parallel the overthrust belt is demonstrated by the switching of the direction of thrust fault vergence nearly 180° from east to west. The variation in thrust-fault geometry suggests additional complexities in bulk translation, internal strains, and rotations. The thrust zone is composed of two sub-zones, each with an opposing direction of fault vergence, located on the eastern toe of the Hogsback thrust in southwestern Wyoming. The northern west-vergent thrust is a wedge thrust and forms a triangle zone between its upper thrust plane and the lower detachment that has formed in a weak shale layer (the Cretaceous K-Marker bed). Thrusts to the south have a frontal ramp geometry and are consistent with the overall thrust orientation of the Cordilleran overthrust belt located immediately to the west. The two thrust sub-zones are small, relative to the main Hogsback thrust to the west, and adjacent to each other, being separated by a transfer zone measuring in the hundreds of meters along strike. The transfer zone is relatively undisturbed by the faults (at the scale of seismic resolution), but reflections are less coherent with some very small offsets. The thrusts are thin-skinned and located above a shallow-dipping single detachment (or décollement) that is shared by faults in both sub-zones. Lateral growth of the thrust faults link along strike to form an antithetic fault linkage. Structural restoration of thrust faults shows varied amounts of shortening along strike as well as greater shortening in stratigraphic layers of the west-vergent fault to the north. Results from a waveform classification and spectral decomposition attribute analysis support our interpretations of how the variations in the detachment may govern the structural development above it. The kinematic evolution of the dual-verging thrust faults is likely controlled by local pinning within the transfer zone between the thrust-fault sub-zones as well as by changes in the competence of the strata hosting the detachment and in the thickness of the thrust sheet. The analysis and interpretation of dual-vergent thrust structures in the Cordilleran overthrust belt serve as an analog to better understand complex fold, fault, and detachment relations in other thrust belts.

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Of the studies that considered negatively sloped keyboards, results showed improved comfort and postural effects while typing on keyboards; however, few studies of negatively sloped keyboard angles and their resulting effects on objective physiological measures, psychological measures, and performance have been performed. The objective of this study was to quantify the effects of negative keyboard slopes on forearm muscle activity, wrist posture, key strike force, perceived discomfort, and performance to identify a negative keyboard angle or range of keyboard angles that minimizes exposure to hypothesized risk factors for hand/wrist work related musculoskeletal disorders. Ten experienced typists (4 males and 6 females) participated in a laboratory study to compare keyboard slopes ranging from 7° to -30°, at 10° increments from 0° to -30°, using an experimental wedge designed for use with QWERTY keyboards. Repeatability was examined by requiring participants to complete the experiment in two test sessions one week apart. Dependent variable data was collected during 10 minute test sessions. Wrist posture data revealed postural benefits for negative angles of 0° or greater compared to 7°. Specifically, the percentage of wrist movements within a neutral zone and percentage of wrist movements within ±5° and ±10° degrees increased as keyboard angle became more negative. EMG results were mixed with some variables supporting negative keyboard angles, while other results favored the standard keyboard configuration. Net typing speed supported the -10° keyboard angle, while other negative typing angles were comparable, if not better, than the standard. These findings showed that there was strong support for improved postural changes associated with negatively sloped keyboard wedges, though user perceptions favored the standard configuration. / Master of Science

No / This article examines whether the downward trajectory in strike activity in nine Western European economies has continued over recent years. In doing so, it considers the nature of the dominant forms of extant strike activity and how these relate to systems of collective bargaining and political exchange. The main findings are three-fold. First, while there has been a general decline in aggregate strike activity, this has often been punctuated by sharp peaks. Second, the dominant nature of the strike activity, especially the sharp peaks, has become increasingly concerned with mounting demonstrative collective mobilizations in the political, rather than industrial, arena. Consequently, much strike activity is increasingly being deployed as a tool of political leverage with governments rather than as a tool of industrial leverage with (private sector) employers. Third, official data on strikes are becoming increasingly unreliable as they contain ever more significant exclusions, raising not so much the prospect of an end to quiescence but an over-estimation of the extent of decline.

Yes / This article examines the frequency, nature and outcomes of employers seeking injunctions against strikes and industrial action mounted by unions between 2005 and 2014. The number of actual and threatened applications continues to be relatively high compared with the previous period when strike levels were significantly higher, with employers continuing to gain overwhelmingly successful outcomes. Yet usage is increasingly concentrated in a small number of industrial sectors, suggesting the notion of ‘strike effectiveness’ provides the best means by which to explain their relative frequency and presence. Comparative analysis with Ireland highlights the specificity of the nature of British legal regulation of employer seeking injunctive relief.

Yes