M. Ing. / In this modern era, times and technology are changing at an ever increasing rate. Along with these changes, various challenges are presented for the future of engineering in South Africa. Moreover, ways and means of innovatively supplying in the need for future scholars in engineering and science is crucial for the economic stability of South Africa. This dissertation examines a model for the effective management of a Mathematics Advancement Programme, utilising engineering management technology, for a community engagement project to innovatively create future engineering scholars for tertiary education institutions. Application of project management and control systems theory, while including some leadership concepts, is made in the operational structure of a Maths Advancement Programme. Control systems theory has been applied to project management in order to create a sustainable method of monitoring feedback in a triangulation sampling system. The combination of non-probability sampling and purpose sampling systems forms the basis of the triangulation system. Evidence is presented regarding the findings on how effective the training of facilitators, in terms of leadership, was in comparison to other similar projects. Engineering Management Technology was used to practically run a community education project, this process clearly helped to establish improved results in mathematics and a renewed interest in engineering and science. It is also suggested that Control Systems related to project management and decision making should be researched further; in order to obtain greater benefits from the collaboration of these two areas of knowledge.

M.Ing. / Broadly speaking, the world in which we live exhibits complex interactions of multivariate and multidimensional parameters that are implemented by organizations in a global organizational space. Within this space exists numerous organizations in various disciplines and with various objectives, save the common objective of survival. These organizations compete in the environment created by this space, consuming energy, labour and raw materials from the environment and producing energy, finished products and waste back into the environment. The optimization of the operation, structure and existence of each organization in organizational space allows for a structured approach to symbiotic survival and the common achievement of a multitude of organizational objectives; providing for the avoidance of the depletion or extinction of resources, materials and energies within the space. If the world as we know it holds organizational space as one of its facets, then the global system is at the mercy of the operations of each organization, amongst others. The world then contains the embodiment of each system in some or other dimension. It allows for the training of the mind of the set of human systems to seek out that which allows for the progression of the common interest of the global system and thus the survival of each system it contains, ultimately leading to its own survival. Engineering management allows for the formalization of a relationship between two disciplines that can greatly impact the operation of the global system. It is not true that this is the most important of all disciplines; but what can be said to be true is that successful completion of the objectives of each discipline allows for the achievement of the overall system objectives. Together with all other disciplines, engineering management calls for both the consideration of organizational space as a whole and the consideration of each organization within the space. The consideration of all organizations as an open, selfcontained system allows for the satisfaction of the latter consideration by finding the solution to the question: “If I was a system, how would I want to be controlled and optimized?” An organizational system contains a set of components, inputs, energies, processes and outputs in one or other formation. Probably one of the most important elements of the component set is the set of human beings – a component which exhibits nonlinear and time variant response characteristics. The successful modeling and optimization of a system as a whole requires the modeling of each component and process, and that which poses the greatest difficulty is the human, perhaps because the one responsible for the modeling is itself a component of the same set. Viewed in light of the greater system, the author is simply a member of the component set of an academic organization interacting within the global organizational space, and this is the accumulation of the research that I respectfully present.

This thesis examines the reconstruction of Lebanon following the war with Israel in the summer of 2006. Based on Stehr’s notion of the contemporary global economy (1994), the thesis offers a comprehensive account of how Lebanon used a global network to rebuild its infrastructure following the war and questions if the country is able to integrate fundamental elements of a knowledge-based society to participate in a worldwide economy and ensure future prosperity. Drawing on Luhmann’s social system’s theory (2002), the importance of shared objectives in collaborative projects and the recent importance of sustainable development theory in international relations, the thesis explores the communication practices used to organize this large-scale project. The study utilizes a qualitative research design with a macroscopic conceptual approach to offer a general understanding of the different systems that cooperate to aid in the reconstruction efforts. In-depth interviews are conducted with ten key informants, combined with the analysis of governmental reports, to identify significant investments offered by the international community and the different objectives of those involved in the project. A model illustrates the dynamics of these interactions, and helps to identify the areas most important to the country’s knowledge society. The protection of the country’s democratic system is identified as the overarching and shared objective of all those who contributed to the reconstruction of Lebanon, a value that is of great significance to a knowledge-based society.

The concept of systems accounts for the organization and patterns of order that characterize the natural world. Throughout the history of science, scientific activity has been based on this concept, either implicitly under a mechanistic approach or explicitly under an holistic systems approach. Contemporary science is now based on an holistic systems viewpoint that encompasses both the natural and social worlds as objects for study. Based on this context for the systems viewpoint, the thesis addresses archival constructs, arising spontaneously as a byproduct of societal activity, as instances of systems. This is an aspect of their nature that was recognized by traditional theorists, who devised the methodology that still fundamentally guides archival practice. However, the archival field has not yet recognized the applicability and utility of formal systems notions to the work of the archivist, specifically to the tasks of arrangement, description, and appraisal. The thesis argues that appropriate handling of archival constructs requires that they be treated as systems, that the concept of systems provides a necessary framework for archival theory, and that by adopting a systems viewpoint, the archival field may regain the status of a recognized profession and join with other fields of applied science that contribute to systems research. / Arts, Faculty of / Library, Archival and Information Studies (SLAIS), School of / Graduate

D.Litt et Phil. (Philosophy) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

The purposes of this research report are (1) to introduce into financial management theory, the concepts of stability, resilience and steady state from general systems theory, (2) to formulate hypotheses about the relationships among rate of return, business risk, stability and resilience as exhibited by business systems, (3) to construct quantifiable surrogates for these concepts in terms of the financial operating characteristics of business systems and (4) to test the hypotheses with an appropriate statistical methodology. Business systems are investigated from two different perspectives or levels of aggregation. The first level treats each individual firm as the business system. The second level aggregates the individual firms into their respective industries based on the United States Department of Commerce's Standard Industrial Classification code, SIC. By applying this model at both levels, we can generate two duplicate sets of six hypotheses, one set for individual firms and one set for industries. The six hypotheses are: (1) Business Risk and Rate of Return are negatively correlated, (2) Resilience and Rate of Return are negatively correlated, (3) Stability and Rate of Return are positively correlated, (4) Business Risk and Resilience are positively correlated, (5) Resilience and Stability are negatively correlated and (6) Stability and Business Risk are negatively correlated. The theoretical contribution of this research project derives from the integration of general systems theory and financial management theory. The integration is based on equating the rate of return from financial theory with the steady state from systems theory. Business risk is defined in terms of the relative fluctuation in the rate of return over time. Stability is that property of a system that allows the system to maintain a steady state in spite of small or temporary perturbations to the system. Resilience is that property of a system that allows the system to maintain a steady state in spite of large or permanent perturbations. The empirical contribution of this research project is the determination of statistical relationships among rate of return, business risk, stability and resilience within business systems. The raw data collected for this study were derived from the Compustat II tape files available at Idaho State University. These files contain financial data on several thousand industrial and non-industrial companies listed on the major stock exchanges and Over-the-Counter stock exchanges. The diagram above summarizes the statistical results of this research project. The numerical values superimposed upon the connecting lines are the statistical results of the tests of the twelve hypotheses and represent respectively; the spearman rank correlation coefficient/level of significance for firms (F) and industries (I). The empirical results confirmed the postulated relationships.

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In this paper we investigate several aspects of computing control system radii for finite element approximations of control systems governed by partial differential equations. Finite element approximations of the heat equation (parabolic), the wave equation (hyperbolic) and the equations of thermoelasticity (mixed) are used as test cases. Balanced realizations, reduced order models and other transformed models are also studied. / Master of Science

published_or_final_version / abstract / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / abstract / Mechanical Engineering / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy