Thesis (MBA) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2012

Published Article / The former Technikon Free State, now the CUT, was concerned about the academic achievements of students and decided to introduce a programme to enhance the outcomes of student learning. The then Technikon initially identified weak performers and advised / compelled them to attend special classes. This programme proved to be unsuccessful due to the potential stigma associated with attending special classes. The Technikon commenced with its first research initiatives to implement supplemental instruction (SI) in 1993. The founders of SI, Profs Diana Martin and Robert Blanc of the University of Kansas City in Missouri, USA, presented demonstrations at joint workshops and also invited attendees to attend SI workshops in the USA. Soon permission was granted to implement SI at this institution in 1993. A new dimension to the concept of SI, namely to record SI lectures for discussion afterwards was added.

Published Article / Psychosocial support has been defined as an ongoing process of meeting emotional, social, mental and spiritual needs, all of which are considered essential elements of meaningful and positive human development. It goes beyond simply meeting the learners' physical needs, placing greater emphasis on learners' psychological and emotional development and their need for social interaction. The Free State Department of Basic Education defines vulnerable learners as orphans, heads of child-headed households, neglected learners and all learners who do not have access to a basic set of school uniforms. The department states that there are currently 70 000 of these learners in the province. This article presents a theoretical critique, within a social justice paradigm, of efforts aimed at supporting vulnerable learners psychosocially in the rural areas of South Africa. It describes attempts to afford vulnerable learners education and addresses their marginalisation and inherent powerlessness (social justice). It argues that psychosocial support (meeting their needs) for vulnerable learners will improve their access to education.

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Hyper-wideband communications represent the next frontier in spread spectrum RF systems with an excess of 10 GHz instantaneous bandwidth. In this thesis, an end-to-end physical layer link is implemented featuring 16k-OFDM with a 4 GHz-wide channel centered at 9 GHz. No a priori channel state information is assumed; channel information is derived from the preamble and comb pilot structure. Due to the unique expansive spectral properties, the channel estimator is primarily composed of least squares channel estimates combined with a robust support vector statistical learning approach using autonomously selected parameters. The system’s performance is demonstrated through indoor wireless experiments, including line-of-sight and near-line-of-sight links. Moreover, it is shown that the support vector approach performs superior to linear and cubic spline inter/extrapolation of the least squares channel estimates.

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This study has aimed at examining the nature and function of the support and protection that is offered and provided to human rights defenders trough a selected few international as well as regional human rights instruments and mechanisms, among them the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, the EU Guidelines on Human Rights Defenders as well as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Court on Human Rights. In order to conduct such a study in a fairly limited and concrete way a number of cases were selected of human rights defenders who have undergone or are currently undergoing criminal prosecution and are incarcerated in Guatemala. The selection was based on the notion that apart from murder, criminal prosecution and incarceration of human rights defenders constitutes one of the most harmful and effective ways to actively hinder the continuance of valuable human rights work. Consequently, it impedes the promotion, implementation and protection of human rights on a general level. In regards to this States such as Guatemala have found ways to circumvent their international human rights duties by allowing others or themselves to label human rights defenders as criminal and violent actors, thus taking away the legitimate aspect of their roles and functions when it comes to promoting and safeguarding the enjoyment and exercise of human rights. The examined cases were meant to shed light on the situation for defenders in Guatemala but most importantly they were meant to illustrate a context in which one can examine the role and function that international human rights instruments and mechanisms have to combat such types of situations. The study found that although the concerned instruments and mechanisms such as the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, the EU-guidelines on Human Rights Defenders, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Court on Human Rights have a positive, important and impacting role in providing support to human rights defenders they have not yet reached/obtained the function of preventing persecution of human rights defenders, most notably of the legal kind. Since these mechanisms can only recommend but not force States to recognize and treat advocates of rights as “human rights defenders” their role and function for this specific purpose becomes less effective. All is not negative however, and the instruments and mechanisms that exist today are an illustration of the ambitions of States to follow international human rights principles and standards, at least to some extent.

Internet Service Providers gather vast amounts of data in the form of trouble tickets created from connectivity related issues. This data is often stored and seldom used for proactive purposes. This thesis explores the feasibility of finding correlations in network support data through the use of data mining activities. Correlations such as these could be used for improving troubleshooting or staffing related activities. The approach uses the data mining methodology CRISP-DM to investigate typical data mining operations from the perspective of a Network Operation Center. The results show that correlations between the solving time and other ticket related attributes do exist and that support data could be used for the activities mentioned. The results also show that it exists a lot of room for improvement when it comes to data mining activities in network support data.

Studiens syfte var att undersöka individens upplevelse gällande samarbete, gruppsammanhållning, förtroende och kollegialt stöd i ett virtuellt team i jämförelse med ett traditionellt team. Studien genomfördes på en rikstäckande myndighet som arbetat med virtuella team i tio år. I studien deltog sju intervjupersoner varav fyra personer var män och tre personer kvinnor som valdes ut genom ett målstyrt urval. Personerna var mellan 28 och 62 år gamla och hade haft en anställning inom vald organisation under minst två år. Personerna ingick i samma team men hade olika platsbundenheter. Data samlades in genom semi-strukturerade intervjuer och analyserades med hjälp av en kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Resultatet bekräftade tidigare teori om utmaningar i utvecklande av samarbete, gruppsammanhållning, förtroende och kollegialt stöd inom virtuella team. Intervjupersonerna upplevde ett starkare samarbete, gruppsammanhållning, förtroende och kollegialt stöd för de kollegor som var samplacerade och såg därmed ingen nytta av det virtuella teamet.