Abstract The key purpose of this study was to understand and create a model of "safety leadership as a line supervisor's task" based on a wide range of theoretical material. At the same time, an integrated development project examined safety in a target organisation using action-analysis research methods, and this provided new knowledge about the role of the line supervisor as a safety leader. The present study is a scientific report covering the whole research project. The theoretical part of the research examined the background of a zero-accident program and sought to confirm whether it was possible to affect the actions of general management through a systematic and integrated safety program. The conclusion of this study is that the application of the concept of intangible assets is an effective strategy for achieving this end. From this point of view, the zero-accident program can be considered as a project that accumulates intangible assets. In this study special attention was paid to the communication skills of the line supervisor in handling safety management. The theoretical part of the research posited a development model of total safety management, according to which the safety program was carried out in the form of a three-part project. The model also facilitated effective and authentic communication among the whole staff at the target organisation from the very beginning of the project. Furthermore, the model provided a basis for analysing and interpreting the results that were achieved. The development project focused on improving the level of communication regarding safety so as to support the work of the line supervisor. The basic element of safety management as a line manager's task was crystallised in the communication model created at the beginning of the research process. This model was a vital instrument of communication, committing all managers in the target organisation to a shared vision of the safety program. The empirical part of the research provided a context bound, in-depth description of the process of realising a zero-accident program in a large organisation (900 employees). On the basis of the traditional lost time injury frequency rate (LTIF) it could be shown that the development project achieved its challenging goal. At the same time, it showed that thoroughly attending to the improvement of safety matters brings about results. On the basis of other ways of measuring safety performance (process-based performance indicators), there was a positive improvement in almost every case, but it was not usually possible to achieve the strict numerical goals. This study offers new knowledge about the implementation of a long-term development project focused on total safety management, carried out on the basis of a uniquely tailored model. New knowledge was also provided regarding the role of the line supervisor in developing and implementing safety culture. The communication model gathers the basic elements of safety management for which the line supervisor is responsible (risk assessment of one's own work, advanced accident and near-accident investigation, shop floor safety meetings and advanced safety inspection) in a new way. The model clarifies the role of the line supervisor as a safety leader, and at the same time it functions as a concrete tool for enhancing the quality of the line manager's leadership regarding safety. / Tiivistelmä Tämän väitöskirjatutkimuksen keskeisin tavoite oli lisätä ymmärrystä ja mallintaa ilmiötä "turvallisuuden johtaminen esimiestyönä" laajan teoreettisen aineiston pohjalta. Samalla analysoitiin toiminta-analyyttisen tutkimusotteen keinoin kohdeorganisaatiossa toteutettua kokonaisvaltaista turvallisuuden kehittämishanketta ja tuotettiin uutta tietoa esimiehen turvallisuusroolista turvallisuuden johtamisessa. Tämä väitöskirja on koko tutkimushankkeen tieteellinen raportti. Teoriaosassa haettiin syvempää ymmärrystä nolla-tapaturmaohjelman toteuttamisen taustaksi sekä vahvistusta käsitykselle, että systemaattisella ja kokonaisvaltaisella turvallisuusohjelmalla voidaan parhaimmillaan edistää muutakin johtamistoimintaa. Tarkastelussa päädyttiin soveltamaan aineettoman pääoman -käsitettä, jonka näkökulmasta nolla-tapaturmaohjelmaa voidaan selvästi pitää myös yrityksen aineettoman pääoman kartuttamishankkeena. Tässä tarkastelussa korostui erityisesti kommunikatiivisen osaamisen merkitys esimiehen turvallisuuden johtamisessa. Teoriaosan kautta luotiin Turvallisuuden johtamisen kehittämismalli, minkä mukaisesti turvallisuusohjelma toteutettiin kolmena toisiaan läheisesti tukevana osaprojekteina. Malli mahdollisti myös ohjelman tehokkaan ja uskottavan viestinnän koko kohdetehtaan henkilöstölle heti kehittämishankkeen käynnistysvaiheesta lähtien. Lisäksi mallin avulla myöhemmin arvioitiin ja tulkittiin toteutuneita tuloksia. Kehittämishankkeessa keskityttiin siis erityisesti esimiestoimintaa tukevaan turvallisuuskommunikoinnin tehostamiseen. Asia kiteytettiin tutkimusprosessin alkuvaiheen aikana turvallisuuden johtamisen esimiestyön peruselementeistä muodostettuun Kommunikointimalliin. Tämä malli toimi kehittämishankkeen tärkeimpänä kommunikaatiovälineenä, jonka avulla turvallisuusohjelman visioon pystyttiin sitouttamaan koko kohdetehtaan esimieskunta. Empiirinen osa tuotti kontekstisidonnaisen, syvällisen prosessikuvauksen yhden varsin laajan tehtaan (noin 900 henkilöä) nolla-tapaturmaohjelman toteuttamisesta ja siihen liittyvästä analyysistä. Perinteisen tapaturmataajuusmittarin perusteella voidaan todeta kehittämishankeen onnistuneen saavuttaessaan sille asetetun varsin haasteellisen tavoitteen ja samalla osoittaneen, että perusteellinen paneutuminen turvallisuustoiminnan parantamiseen tuottaa tulosta. Muiden mittareiden osalta kehitystä myönteiseen suuntaan tapahtui lähes kaikkien prosessi- ja johtamisjärjestelmäpohjaisten mittareiden osalta, mutta varsinaiset numeraaliset tavoitteet niissä jäivät yleensä saavuttamatta. Tutkimuksen avulla saatiin uutta tietoa turvallisuuden johtamisen kehittämisen pitkäkestoisen kehittämishankkeen läpiviennistä, johon kehitettiin turvallisuuden johtamisen kehittämismalli. Uutta tietoa saatiin myös esimiehen roolista ja toiminnasta turvallisuuskulttuurin kehittämisessä ja kehittämisprosessin läpiviennissä. Kommunikointimalliin koottiin turvallisuuden johtamisen esimiestyön peruselementit (oman työn riskien arviointi, vaaratilanteiden ja tapaturmien tutkiminen, turvallisuustuokioiden pitämien sekä kehittynyt työpaikkatarkastustoiminta) uudella tavalla. Malli selkeyttää linjaesimiehen roolia turvallisuustyössä ja se toimii samalla konkreettisena työkaluna linjaesimiesten johtajuuden ja turvallisuusjohtajuuden tarkastelussa.

This study looks at the relationship between the division of household tasks, satisfaction with the household division and the intention/potential intention to break-up in Sweden as a gender-egalitarian context with a high proportion of family dissolution. The framework of the study is relative deprivation theory. The data analyzed is extracted from the Generation and Gender Survey Wave 1 for Sweden. The sample size of the study is 2,170 persons including married and cohabiting heterosexuals with an age range of 20–49 years and the tool of analysis is logistic regression. We find that equal sharing of household tasks is common in Sweden however gender inequality has remained a concern. Our findings highlight that equality in the division of household tasks does not play an important role in family stability but perception of fairness regarding the division of household tasks is the important factor. Our findings also show that married persons and couples in which one of them is on parental leave have lower intention/potential intention of breakup.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The question as to which language should be used as a medium of instruction in schools in multilingual societies is a controversial one. In South Africa, the question is often posed in binary terms: Should the medium of instruction be a familiar local language such as Xhosa or a language of wider communication like English? This study is an attempt to answer the above question. The study profiled the writing abilities of Grade 4 and Grade 7 pupils at Themba Primary, a school located in Khayelitsha in the Western Cape, in both their mother tongue, Xhosa, and in English, their official medium of instruction at school since Grade 4. Three written tasks, which consisted of a narrative piece of writing, a reading comprehension exercise, and an expository piece of writing, were administered to the pupils in English and Xhosa. The purpose of the exercise was to examine some of the implications for educational language policy of the differences in performance in the two languages. All the tasks were authentic, in that they were based on aspects of the pupils' curriculum and written in the formal academic language pupils were expected to be exposed to in their respective grades. All the tasks were graded systematically under controlled conditions. / South Africa

Cette recherche a comme objectif de profiter des avantages de la mise en œuvre du Web social avec la perspective actionnelle proposée par le Cadre Européen Commun de Références pour les langues (désormais CECR) pour amener les nouveaux arrivants en France à être des acteurs sociaux dans la société française. L’expérimentation s’est déroulée au cours de l’année universitaire 2014-2015 avec deux publics arabophones dont le niveau linguistique et la durée de séjour sont différents. Contrairement aux tâches de simulation de l’approche communicative et à celles du CECR qui sont proches de la vie réelle, les tâches de la présente étude sont ancrées dans la vie réelle. Comment inciter les apprenants arabophones résidant en France à interagir tous ensemble afin de réaliser des tâches réelles au sein de la société française virtuelle en s’appuyant sur la perspective actionnelle et sur le Web social, afin de résoudre leurs problèmes en français et d’acquérir de nouvelles compétences ? Pour éclaircir cette problématique générale, la recherche s’interroge sur la manière d’étendre la tâche pour qu’elle soit ancrée dans la vie réelle, sur la démarche de réaliser des tâches réelles, sur l’agir des participants en tant qu’acteurs sociaux, sur les compétences développées et acquises au cours l’expérience, et sur le manière d’évaluer une tâche de la vie réelle. Chaque groupe constitue une communauté de pratique en ligne. Dans chacune d’elles, il s’agit d’analyser, dans une démarche netnographique avec des captures d’écran, les co-actions, les échanges et les relations interpersonnelles entre les différents acteurs et le rôle dans les trois espaces de l’expérience : espace de discussion (Facebook), de rédaction (Google Docs) et de publication (site social visé). / Cette recherche a comme objectif de profiter des avantages de la mise en œuvre du Web social avec la perspective actionnelle proposée par le Cadre Européen Commun de Références pour les langues (désormais CECR) pour amener les nouveaux arrivants en France à être des acteurs sociaux dans la société française. L’expérimentation s’est déroulée au cours de l’année universitaire 2014-2015 avec deux publics arabophones dont le niveau linguistique et la durée de séjour sont différents. Contrairement aux tâches de simulation de l’approche communicative et à celles du CECR qui sont proches de la vie réelle, les tâches de la présente étude sont ancrées dans la vie réelle. Comment inciter les apprenants arabophones résidant en France à interagir tous ensemble afin de réaliser des tâches réelles au sein de la société française virtuelle en s’appuyant sur la perspective actionnelle et sur le Web social, afin de résoudre leurs problèmes en français et d’acquérir de nouvelles compétences ? Pour éclaircir cette problématique générale, la recherche s’interroge sur la manière d’étendre la tâche pour qu’elle soit ancrée dans la vie réelle, sur la démarche de réaliser des tâches réelles, sur l’agir des participants en tant qu’acteurs sociaux, sur les compétences développées et acquises au cours l’expérience, et sur le manière d’évaluer une tâche de la vie réelle. Chaque groupe constitue une communauté de pratique en ligne. Dans chacune d’elles, il s’agit d’analyser, dans une démarche netnographique avec des captures d’écran, les co-actions, les échanges et les relations interpersonnelles entre les différents acteurs et le rôle dans les trois espaces de l’expérience : espace de discussion (Facebook), de rédaction (Google Docs) et de publication (site social visé).

The purpose of this research project was to explore the experiences of mature women students in juggling the multiplicity of roles they faced during the adulthood stage of life. The lack of literature, particularly on the African woman’s experiences of being a student while also dealing with the roles of being a mother, wife and employee, inspired this research. I explored the women’s experiences using a qualitative approach and semi-structured individual interviews, and did a thematic analysis of the textual data. The average age of the women who participated in this project was 36.8, and except for two of the 10 interviewees, all women were enrolled for a postgraduate studies. The majority of women enrolled for further studies because they wanted to increase their opportunities in the work environment, while one woman did so because of a career change. The stories of the ten mature women students that I interviewed revealed five major themes. In describing their experiences of juggling multiple roles, the mature women students mentioned that they studied while also maintaining a job because of the financial obligations and the lifestyle of their age group. They experienced role strain from the many roles that required an equal share of their time, but managed to cope because they had personal goals to achieve and would not relinquish those. Both congruent and incongruent experiences emerged between work and study, particularly when they could not attribute equal time to work and study. Although they were encouraged and supported by their partners and children, and sometimes also their families and the community, they still had to deal with the lack of support from the institutions where they were enrolled. Extreme tiredness and guilt because of conflicting role demands were found to be most common among all ten women. For the most part the women had to deal with an increase in their role responsibilities and experienced different emotions regarding the influence of studying on family life. By managing their time well they were able to cope and had thus far been successful in balancing their different roles. Above all the mature women student were able to cope with the multiplicity of roles because they had determination, were focused and committed, and wanted to achieve success in their educational goals. Perseverance and dedication to their goals emerged as mature women students’ most powerful tool for coping with multiple roles. / Dissertation (MA (Psychology))--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Psychology / unrestricted

Relatively few people occupy formal leadership positions in their lives. Yet everyone must make decisions in the context of their different roles in life and different positions in society which will influence other people in their environment. Most South African primary schools have leadership models and appointment procedures which culminate in a "formal leadership crush" in the 12th and 13th year of the developing preadolescent. This period is described in literature as a critical development period and serves as a foundation for the forming of identity in the adolescent period which follows it. The purpose of this research is to investigate the appropriateness of existing leadership models for preadolescents in asocial context. Two leadership models are relevant. The first model is the traditional appointment of a core group of leaders for a period of a year, who must perform certain tasks. The second model developed in response to bigger pressure to democratize the leadership process in schools and assumed the form of a committee system. Learners are divided into committees, chairpersons and vice-chairpersons are elected and learners are jointly responsible for performing certain tasks. At the end of the year a core group of high-profile leaders are then appointed. A qualitative research method which follows an inductive, exploring approach was selected, because this method acknowledges the complexity of the phenomenon. Data was content-analytically processed by means of Atlas.ti. The application of different leadership models in the preadolescent development phase is a complex issue. The results indicate that children realize that competence, exemplariness, diligence, hard work, being reliable for teachers, performance and leadership qualities are less important than popularity, familiarity and acceptability among the peer group. In addition the election procedure is inconsequent, because children are brought under the impression that they are being identified as leaders, while at the same time there is a so-called "democratic" process over which children and teachers have no control. Leaders' primary tasks are supervision, discipline and the maintenance of order. This position implies the potential for conflict, because fellow learners are not recognized as authority figures and because the leaders also do not have enforceable authority. Formal leadership models also do not recognize the informal peer group ordering of the participants in the process, and inferiority and a feeling of disempowerment are the result of a situation where a formal role is assigned to someone who is not recognized in the group. The misfit between the demands which a social environment makes of children in the preadolescent development phase may possibly be the cause of the manner in which children's emotional, behavioral and social development disturbances manifest. Primary school leadership models as evaluated in this study, influence the development and end result of the spontaneous development of the preadolescent with regard to the physical, cognitive-moral and psycho-social development. The . compulsory participation in a leadership model in grade 7 has a disruptive and disturbing impact on the preadolescent's development. Proposals for the reviewing of leadership models include the establishment of structure, mentorship and personal involvement and supervision by teachers. That means that time and energy must be spent with the preadolescent, so that behavior and learning may take place by means of modeling and facilitation. / Thesis (PhD (Psychotherapy))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Psychology / unrestricted

Online innovations have been growing rapidly in the past number of years. The integration of online learning with these technological advancements creates significant challenges in determining how the use of technology can contribute to the delivery of learning materials. An area where little research has been undertaken is in determining the skills and attributes online facilitators need to be effective. This study is based on inputs gathered from both online facilitators and online learners. These inputs provided empirical information pertaining to the roles and tasks of both facilitators and learners in an ideal online learning environment. Of what benefit would this study be to future online learning? Taking cognisance of an ideal online environment, the outcomes of this study are categorised into unique groups that will provide insight to the future development of online facilitators and the tasks to be executed in addressing the diverse needs of the online learner in the knowledge era. / Dissertation (MEd (CIE))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Curriculum Studies / unrestricted

This thesis is intent on the introduction to problems of statistical approach to research tasks. It focuses on research assignments, position of research worker and statistician while analyzing, ways of gathering data files and problems connected with them, main types of multivariate statistical methods and possible views of their classification. Moreover, this work includes overview of examples of research assignments, possibilities of their solutions and related data files. First chapter describes statistical approach to the research assignments, and the second one shows concrete examples of these assignments. The enclosed CD includes data files to most of the statistical examples.

L’évolution courante des machines montre une croissance importante dans le nombre et l’hétérogénéité des unités de calcul. Les développeurs doivent alors trouver des alternatives aux modèles de programmation habituels permettant de produire des codes de calcul à la fois performants et portables. PaStiX est un solveur parallèle de système linéaire creux par méthodes directe. Il utilise un ordonnanceur de tâche dynamique pour être efficaces sur les machines modernes multi-coeurs à mémoires hiérarchiques. Dans cette thèse, nous étudions les bénéfices et les limites que peut nous apporter le remplacement de l’ordonnanceur interne, très spécialisé, du solveur PaStiX par deux systèmes d’exécution génériques : PaRSEC et StarPU. Pour cela l’algorithme doit être décrit sous la forme d’un graphe de tâches qui est fournit aux systèmes d’exécution qui peuvent alors calculer une exécution optimisée de celui-ci pour maximiser l’efficacité de l’algorithme sur la machine de calcul visée. Une étude comparativedes performances de PaStiX utilisant ordonnanceur interne, PaRSEC, et StarPU a été menée sur différentes machines et est présentée ici. L’analyse met en évidence les performances comparables des versions utilisant les systèmes d’exécution par rapport à l’ordonnanceur embarqué optimisé pour PaStiX. De plus ces implémentations permettent d’obtenir une accélération notable sur les machines hétérogènes en utilisant lesaccélérateurs tout en masquant la complexité de leur utilisation au développeur. Dans cette thèse nous étudions également la possibilité d’obtenir un solveur distribué de système linéaire creux par méthodes directes efficace sur les machines parallèles hétérogènes en utilisant les systèmes d’exécution à base de tâche. Afin de pouvoir utiliser ces travaux de manière efficace dans des codes parallèles de simulations, nous présentons également une interface distribuée, orientée éléments finis, permettant d’obtenir un assemblage optimisé de la matrice distribuée tout en masquant la complexité liée à la distribution des données à l’utilisateur. / The ongoing hardware evolution exhibits an escalation in the number, as well as in the heterogeneity, of computing resources. The pressure to maintain reasonable levels of performance and portability forces application developers to leave the traditional programming paradigms and explore alternative solutions. PaStiX is a parallel sparse direct solver, based on a dynamic scheduler for modern hierarchical manycore architectures. In this thesis, we study the benefits and the limits of replacing the highly specialized internal scheduler of the PaStiX solver by two generic runtime systems: PaRSEC and StarPU. Thus, we have to describe the factorization algorithm as a tasks graph that we provide to the runtime system. Then it can decide how to process and optimize the graph traversal in order to maximize the algorithm efficiency for thetargeted hardware platform. A comparative study of the performance of the PaStiX solver on top of its original internal scheduler, PaRSEC, and StarPU frameworks is performed. The analysis highlights that these generic task-based runtimes achieve comparable results to the application-optimized embedded scheduler on homogeneous platforms. Furthermore, they are able to significantly speed up the solver on heterogeneous environments by taking advantage of the accelerators while hiding the complexity of their efficient manipulation from the programmer. In this thesis, we also study the possibilities to build a distributed sparse linear solver on top of task-based runtime systems to target heterogeneous clusters. To permit an efficient and easy usage of these developments in parallel simulations, we also present an optimized distributed interfaceaiming at hiding the complexity of the construction of a distributed matrix to the user.

This work focuses on the description and characteristics of common problems which graphic designers face daily when working for advertising agencies. This work describes tasks and organises them according to the type of graphic being processed and the types of output. In addition, this work describes the ways these common tasks can be completed using modern graphics editing software. It also provides a practical definition of a graphic designer and graphic agency. The aim of this work is to map out the fundamental tasks with raster graphics which graphic designers must perform most frequently during their work and to suggest an optimal workflow. As a result, after collating all of the proposed solutions, a manual should take form. It should help to facilitate early stages of work for students who may hold the position of junior graphic designer within advertising agencies.