Many countries have seen an increase in the last 20 years in the number of children cared for by their Grandparents (Edwards & Sweeney, 2007; Edwards & Taub, 2009; Worrall, 2009). In the UK, Looked After Children (LAC) are increasingly being placed with kinship carers, formally known as ‘Family and Friends Care’ following guidance from The Children’s Act (2004). Support for this growing group of carers appears sporadic, and there has been some delay both in practice and procedures in responding to this increase in placement type. Children who are looked after by any carer other than their birth parents are more likely to experience difficulties within the educational context (Dent & Cameron, 2003). The increasing number of these children has implications for child and educational psychologists and other professionals within Children’s Services, as research suggests that children’s success in school depends upon contextual variables associated with the child, their home and school environments. This study explores the characteristics of kinship carers, how they perceive their role and the support currently available to them and also examines the reported educational progress made by children in their care. In addition, this exploratory study considers whether a model developed from Positive Youth Development (PYD) is a useful conceptual framework for professionals supporting KCs. This research uses a case study design; qualitative data has been obtained using semi-structured interviews and analysed using thematic analysis. Difficulties and support requirements varied across kinship carers, the majority of whom were pleased with the support they received, particularly from their families. There were some criticisms of Children’s Services support. Recommendations are made for both Children’s Services staff generally and child and educational psychologists specifically.

The objective of the research was to establish a scientifically-based decision making procedure for determining the amount of cash to be held at a cash point at any time without compromising the customer service level or incurring undue cost. To reach the objective, the problem was divided into the following subproblems: <ul> <li> To determine the cost parameters describing the nature of the problem of cash provision in South Africa.</li> <li> To investigate the characteristics unique to South African retail banking.</li> <li> To determine the nature of the demand distribution for a cash point.</li> <li> To develop a forecasting method appropriate for retail banking, although it was clearly stated that the methods used were specific to the branch studied.</li> <li> To investigate the existing order policies used by retail banks, as well as alternative order policies, with the aim of improving the cash replenishment process.</li> </ul> As a result of the investigation a generic decision model was developed which may be used to improve the process at branch level for retail banks in South Africa. Some suggestions were also made regarding the implementation and maintenance of the model. To investigate the cash replenishment problem, the cooperation of one of the leading retail banks in South Africa was obtained. A typical branch was selected. The total withdrawal, deposit patterns and the withdrawal patterns at the automated teller machines (ATM's) for a three month period during 1998 were investigated. The cost parameters relevant to the cash replenishment process were quantified. The approach followed was based on the classical inventory theory where the total cost of carrying inventory comprised three cost categories, i.e. storage cost, supply cost and shortage cost. Since the banks do not quantify the shortage cost, assumptions regarding the scope of the shortage cost had to be made. The next step was to determine the cost of the existing order policy followed by the branch. This figure was used as a benchmark once alternate policies were investigated. The investigation resulted in alternate policies which significantly reduced the daily cost involved in carrying inventory as well as reduced the average amount of cash carried at the branch. It was also shown, that the branch should consider using an appropriate forecasting method, since once forecasting was combined with an appropriate order policy, it was possible to reduce the cost of carrying cash inventories even further. In conclusion, the research report suggested an implementation plan to be followed at branch level pointing out that certain changes to information systems were required. In addition, training needs were identified to enable the branch operations manager to successfully use the decision support model. A comparison was drawn between the existing approach followed at the branch (which is mainly experience-based and largely of a random nature) to the proposed method. It was shown that the daily cost of carrying cash inventory could be reduced by 13 per cent per day. This represented a daily bottom line cost reduction ofR358. At the time that the research was carried out, this retail bank had 75 similar branches. Should the saving at this representative branch be extrapolated, it shows a potential saving of R8 000 000 per year at this category of branch. It was further shown that the average cash inventory at this branch could be reduced by 52 per cent using the proposed method. The study was limited to an investigation at one particular branch of a leading South African retail bank. The figures used to describe cash movements at the branch were of an extremely sensitive nature and were fairly difficult to obtain due to the way in which transactions are reported. The accuracy of the data provided by the branch could not be verified, but had to be accepted at face value. Although a particular case was investigated, a concerted effort was made to point out how the methodology may be used in the generic situation. During the period under review, the branch relocated to a complex across the street from its previous location in a busy shopping mall. This had a direct impact on the ATM withdrawal patterns at the two ATM's located at the branch. In addition, soon after the research was carried out, a number of other branches of the same retail bank were consolidated into this one particular branch. This would impact on the validity of the branch specific factors determined as part of the research. The study proved the applicability of industrial engineering principles in a service environment, where the added value of having the optimum cash amount available when required would impact directly on the bottom line of the bank and thereby enhance share-holder value. In the changing environment confronting retail banks, enhanced share-holder value is of the utmost importance to increase competitiveness and long-term survival. / Thesis (PhD (Industrial Engineering))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Industrial and Systems Engineering / unrestricted

Social support is best understood from a gendered perspective. Women place more emphasis on their social relationships than men, relying on them to cope with stressful situations. Women’s social relationships become crucial during experiences of homelessness as they rely on their relationships to address basic needs. This paper explored how social support and social networks are experienced within homelessness and housing vulnerability. Two studies examined social support and social networks in homeless and vulnerably-housed women. Study One used a quantitative approach to examine group differences on social support and social network characteristics. Forty-nine homeless and forty-three vulnerably-housed women completed three measures to assess their social networks, social support networks, and global social support. Results showed similar social networks and global social support scores between groups. However, vulnerably-housed women reported fewer social support network members than homeless women, suggesting they have fewer supportive individuals in their lives. Study two used a qualitative approach to understand how homeless and vulnerably-housed women experience social support. Ten homeless and ten vulnerably-housed women discussed their social networks and social support through semi-structured interviews. Responses were used to develop a model of social support interactions and highlighted new aspects of the experience. Participants described how they used strategies to offer and elicit support with their networks, as well as how their contexts shaped their interactions. The positive and negative outcomes from these interactions also became part of the contexts that influenced future interactions. These findings offer new considerations for social support theory and suggestions for service provision.

The world of today is increasingly dependant on a functional, globalized economy. The defence and security establishments’ reliance on supplies and logistics is not new. First responders rely on many tools and systems that are critical to their endeavours. Somewhat disjoint at first glance, these domains share a common need for complex physical or logistical infrastructures such as power plants, ports, supply chains, to name a few examples.All of these are potentially vulnerable to attacks, disruptions, breakdowns, or other activities that disable the infrastructure and consequently cause important physical or economic damage. An obligation exists to protect these critical infrastructures and a decision support system that is able to detect, identify, and mitigate the risk of unwanted events would be invaluable in preventing the disastrous consequences of compromised infrastructure.This thesis explores the design and application of such a system. It starts with a pre-existing, actively researched risk management framework and proposes a methodology to apply it in new contexts, as well as contributions to provide the framework with the ability to solve new problems. Relevant case studies in critical infrastructure protection are presented, as well as applications of the developed methodology with the proposed modifications when suitable. Simulations, results, and insightful discussions are provided for each of the case studies. Finally, research trends, future work, and a conclusion are given, completing this thesis.

This thesis embraces the system of state support of export in Czech republic. Basic financial and non-financial instruments of state support of export in Czech republic are introduced in particular chapters which also contains a description of institutions dealing with above mentioned instruments.

Diplomová práce je postavena na třech hlavních kapitolách, z nich první dvě se staly východiskem pro vytvoření třetí kapitoly a to projektu. První část práce je zaměřena na teoretické poznatky, které jsou spojené s tématem diplomové práce. Druhá část práce je věnována analýze jednotlivých faktorů, jež ovlivňují rozhodování zahraničních investorů při vstupu do České republiky. Analýza je zaměřena na faktor lidských zdrojů, infrastruktury, surovin a připravenosti území, státní regulace, finančních a výrobních trhů. Východiskem této analýzy je SWOT analýza, stanovení silných a slabých stránek a také příležitostí a hrozeb, týkajících se České republiky. V této části práce je zhodnocena i práce agentury CzechInvest a systém investičních pobídek. Analytická část se stala východiskem pro třetí část práce, kde je navržena soustava opatření vedoucí ke zvýšení atraktivity České republiky pro vstup zahraničních investorů. Projektová část práce vychází jak z teoretických tak i z analytických poznatků, které vedly ke stanovení navržených opatření.

Bien que les accélérateurs fassent désormais partie intégrante du calcul haute performance, les gains observés ont un impact direct sur la programmabilité, de telle sorte qu'un support proposant des abstractions portables est indispensable pour tirer pleinement partie de toute la puissance de calcul disponible de manière portable, malgré la complexité de la machine sous-jacente. Dans cette thèse, nous proposons un modèle de support exécutif offrant une interface expressive permettant notamment de répondre aux défis soulevés en termes d'ordonnancement et de gestion de données. Nous montrons la pertinence de notre approche à l'aide de la plateforme StarPU conçue à l'occasion de cette thèse. / Multicore machines equipped with accelerators are becoming increasingly popular in the HighPerformance Computing ecosystem. Hybrid architectures provide significantly improved energyefficiency, so that they are likely to generalize in the Manycore era. However, the complexity introducedby these architectures has a direct impact on programmability, so that it is crucial toprovide portable abstractions in order to fully tap into the potential of these machines. Pure offloadingapproaches, that consist in running an application on regular processors while offloadingpredetermined parts of the code on accelerators, are not sufficient. The real challenge is to buildsystems where the application would be spread across the entire machine, that is, where computationwould be dynamically scheduled over the full set of available processing units.In this thesis, we thus propose a new task-based model of runtime system specifically designedto address the numerous challenges introduced by hybrid architectures, especially in terms of taskscheduling and of data management. In order to demonstrate the relevance of this model, we designedthe StarPU platform. It provides an expressive interface along with flexible task schedulingcapabilities tightly coupled to an efficient data management. Using these facilities, together witha database of auto-tuned per-task performance models, it for instance becomes straightforward todevelop efficient scheduling policies that take into account both computation and communicationcosts. We show that our task-based model is not only powerful enough to provide support forclusters, but also to scale on hybrid manycore architectures.We analyze the performance of our approach on both synthetic and real-life workloads, andshow that we obtain significant speedups and a very high efficiency on various types of multicoreplatforms enhanced with accelerators.

In this diploma thesis I have dealt with the description of the most significant public expenditures, mandatory expenditures. I have focused on building savings, the state support for building savings and the profitableness of building savings as a whole. In the first part of the work, different types of public expenditures are defined and categorized; you may also find there a definition of mandatory expenditures. This section also contains the historical development of building savings to the current form and the development of the basic indicators of building savings in the Czech Republic. Another part is devoted to legislative regulation of building savings; this section also contains the development of the state support and its impact on the state budget. The third, analytical part contains an analysis of microeconomic benefits and macroeconomic consequences for the economy. In this part I analyze the profitability of the savings phase and the cost of credit phase of the building savings, compared with the selected alternative products. At the end of this chapter I will try to offer a picture of the possible forms of the building savings in the future.

M.Ed. (Educational Psychology) / The pressure exerted on schools in South Africa to provide student support is ever increasing. This is directly attributable to the lack of support in the child’s home, often with both parents being absent due to work obligations. As a result, the growing need for classroom support rests solely upon the teacher. Teachers are finding themselves in a very difficult position, firstly to find the time with already full schedules looking after the curriculum and extramural activities, and secondly feeling incompetent to adequately provide the learner with the required support. The need for inter-professional collaboration between the teacher and the educational psychologist is clear. The educational psychologist is adequately trained to provide the necessary learner support, albeit facing a logistical problem of reaching all the learners in the school. To overcome this problem, the help of the teacher is vitally important. The question that arises and which is investigated further in this study, is: What is the nature of this inter-professional collaboration between the teacher and educational psychologist that is required to address the learner’s need for classroom support? To fully grasp and understand this concept of collaboration, the analysis has been applied within the framework of the existing interaction model which classifies it into two dimensions, one being relationship interaction and the other the interaction with the organisational milieu. The research methodology used in this study can be described as a qualitative study. The study took place within an interpretative paradigm with participants being chosen using a goal-orientated sample. The participants were selected from a single school within the Gauteng educational system, to ensure the study remains focused. The data were collected from research journals, semi-structured individual interviews and uncompleted questionnaires. Finally, the data was analysed by making use of a qualitative content analysis method.

This study examines the extent to which locus of control and social support are linked to self-efficacy with regard to disease management in HIV-positive adults. Perceived ability to effectively manage illness was measured with the Self-Efficacy for Managing Chronic Disease Scale. Scores from the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support and the Multidimensional Locus of Control Scale were used as predictors. The gender-balanced sample (N = 69) of HIV+ adults was primarily African-American (65.3%) and European American (30.5%), with a mean age of 47 years (SD = 8.37). Correlational analyses suggested significant positive relationships between self-efficacy, social support, and locus of control due to powerful others. A regression analysis found that the model accounted for 23% of the variance in self-efficacy (adj. R-squared =.23, F (5, 63) = 4.81, p < .01), with social support (&#946; = .37, t = 3.28, p < .01) and locus of control (&#946; = .25, t = 2.26, p < .05) both significant predictors. Results suggest that social support and locus of control contribute to the belief that HIV can be managed. Interestingly, an external locus of control contributed to this belief, perhaps due to the perception of a physician, religious icon, or partner as a "powerful other." Results suggest that a strong supportive relationship with a trusted other along with enhanced social support typically associated with group-based interventions may improve health outcomes by increasing self-efficacy in disease management in HIV-positive adults.