This PhD thesis compared incidents of violence in two Malaysian hospitals and two English hospitals. Using a model of workplace violence, the aims of the thesis were to explore and compare six constructs: extrinsic, intrinsic, triggers, experiences, moderators, and consequences of workplace violence as perceived by Malaysian and English hospital staff. This study used data on experiences of violence gathered in 2005 for incidences in hospitals that occurred up to one year before the survey. The 2004 data from the Incident Report database (IRD) of the English hospitals was also used. Two instruments were developed for this thesis. First was the General Violence Victimization Questionnaire (GVQ), an instrument to identify the types, prevalence, nature, consequences, post-incident support, and reporting trends of violence in hospitals. The second instrument was the Violence Victimization Semi-structured Interview (VicQ) which explored factors leading to the violent incident, the violent incident itself, and psycho-social issues relating to the violent incident. Both instruments were translated into the Malay language for use in Malaysia. 227 people participated in the quantitative survey: 162 people from the Malaysian Government Hospitals (MGH) and 115 people from the National Health Service (NHS). A total of 25 people volunteered to be interviewed as part of the qualitative aspect of the study: 15 from the MGH and 10 from the NHS. Six categories of violence were compared: verbal, nonverbal, threat, physical, sexual, and psychologically-based. A total of 4118 violent incidents (1402 in MGH and 2716 in NHS) were reported. The most common type of violence was psychologically-based violence in the MGH and verbal violence in the NHS. Both samples perceived that the major source of workplace violence was from patients and involved one male perpetrator. There were differences between the two samples indicative of cultural differences. Of those interviewed, the Malaysian participants perceived that offenders were intrinsically motivated to offend. The English participants perceived that offenders had either intrinsic or extrinsic motivation for perpetuating violence. Differences were noted for substance abuse and customer relations as triggers of organisational violence. Comparisons of moderators were different for the two country samples. Comparisons of consequences were not significantly different. Comparisons across several demographic variables (gender, age, and occupational groupings) were not significant between the two country samples with regards to workplace violence victimisation. However, a comparison of length of service was found to be significant. The final path model differed from the original model of workplace violence. Additional findings include a difference between the established definition and participants‘ definition of workplace violence, a lack of anti-violence policies in Malaysian hospitals, under reporting, and unforeseen direct and direct relationships among the six constructs.

Along with the technical and technological evolution of today’s modern society, comes a new range of threats on critical infrastructure such as the malicious use of explosives, fire arms, ramming with vehicles, arson, electromagnetic threats, chemical and biological weapons, and espionage. To maintain social security, a need of enforcing critical infrastructure to withstand the damage on withheld values caused by antagonist strikes is developed. The need of establishing enforcing measures is utterly important regarding the critical infrastructures pursuing democratic activities such as government agencies, embassies and residences of the head of states, amongst others. Establishing an adequate protection to the intended critical infrastructure brings up an issue with managing to enforce the existing façade and its framework, cornices, doors, windows and vents to make them resistant to the current threats. This master degree project aims to compile existing knowledge and suggest enforcing solutions based on building technology that take the current design in consideration and provides a structural protection to withstand stated threats. The aim of the work is fulfilled through a literature study, several interviews, the compilation of a risk index analysis and three representative types of artificial buildings with democratic purposes. The work results in several enforcing façade solutions that confirm existing researches discussing fortification and structural protection, and which creates an adequate protection against antagonist strikes ability to cause damage on withheld values in the building. In general, a façade construction is to be enforced with major thickness, density, elastic strength and air tightness. The work also leads to the discovery of several, never before officially compiled and scientifically researched enforcing façade solutions. When establishing enforcing measures to the façade of critical, democratic infrastructure it’s essential to create a structural protection that withstands the current threats while also being reasonable on possible actions, the effects on the building activity and financial maintainability. The structural protection created needs to work as a unity of façade, joists and attachments to ensure the building doesn’t collapse due to local damage. Regardless of the enforcing measures taken, there’s always going to be a risk on new kinds of threats evolving or antagonist strikes summoning up major resources than expected when designing the protection. With public buildings in urban areas it’s not practically or financially reasonable to establish a structural protection to resist every possible threat since the building also needs to be appealing, retain conservational values and ensure accessibility.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Moss frogs are restricted to permanently moist terrestrial habitats in the south-western Cape Fold Mountains. There is a very close association between Arthroleptella distribution and Table Mountain Sandstone. Suitable habitats are generally occupied by allopatric populations of moss frogs. Comprehensive spatial sampling of moss frogs (genus Arthroleptella) in the Cape Floristic Region biodiversity hotspot yielded 192 new distribution records; 5 842 advertisement calls from 240 individual male frogs; 31 Rag-1,76 16S, 54 12S sequences and morphological measurements of 90 specimens. There are many differences in male advertisement call and genetic sequences between populations on different mountain ranges, even over small distances. A mitochondrial and nuclear gene phylogeny of the southern African Pyxicephalidae places Natalobatrachus as the sister genus to Arthroleptella. Application of a Bayesian relaxed molecular clock model indicates that Arthroleptella arose between 20 and 39 Ma. Phylogenetic trees return two main clades within Arthroleptella: one consists of species which exhibit chirp-like calls and the second contains species with longer calls composed of a series of clicks. These two clades diverged between 19 and 22 Ma. There is a general pattern of strong phylogeographic structure with many small, isolated populations. Three species are identified within the Chirping clade and seven in the Clicking clade, including three undescribed species. This population structure is a result of the patchy distribution of suitable habitat and low vagility of the moss frogs.The distribution and speciation of moss frogs has been affected by drying and cooling climate change, changing geomorphology over the last 20 Ma and the increasing prevalence of fire over the last 5 Ma. An assessment of the threat status of each species according to IUCN criteria categorised one species as Least Concern, seven as Near Threatened, one as Vulnerable and one as Critically Endangered. The primary threats to Arthroleptella are invasive alien plants and increased fire frequencies and intensities.

Magister Legum - LLM

This diploma thesis examines the process of preparation and implementation of a security policy as a means of information asset security management. The theoretical part describes security policies as an important part of information security management systems in a company and discusses the issue of virtual teams in terms of safety risks they pose for information security. This theoretical knowledge is applied in the practical part of the thesis where a security policy is composed for a small IT company with virtual team organization.

Clearly established conservation priorities are urgently required for taxa and ecosystems in critical need of conservation. This helps to identify and document taxa most in need of conservation attention, and provides an index of the state of degeneration of biodiversity. Including as much relevant information as possible in a prioritisation assessment will deliver the most accurate classification, yet these variables should not overly complicate the prioritisation process. Conservation assessments depend not just on the taxon’s susceptibility to threat (i.e. risk of extinction, or Red List assessments), but also the conservation value, irreplaceability and nature and intensity of the threats. Research into the value and applicability of conservation prioritisation tools at a regional scale, allowed for the assessment of the extinction risk as well as subsequent priority ranking of South African mammals. At the outset research was directed towards investigating South African mammals in accordance with their respective regional and global World Conservation Union (IUCN) Red List and Red Data Book assessments. The regional Red List assessment drastically improved local knowledge of the current extinction risk of various mammals, and identified 57 marine and terrestrial mammals to be highly threatened. Up to date regional extinction risk assessments, allowed for the investigation of whether a human activity threat index derived from six human activity variables across South Africa could be used to highlight mammals threatened with extinction while also being exposed to high human activity. Evidence indicated various threatened and lower risk mammals were exposed to high human activity throughout their range, pointing to high potential threat and future increase in extinction risk. For relevant prioritisation to take place, components of vulnerability (IUCN Red List assessments, and occupancy data), irreplaceability (endemism and taxonomic distinctiveness), and threat measures (body mass and human density in a taxa distributional range) was introduced into relational priority assessment which allowed for a simplified approach in determining conservation priorities for taxa under various region-specific conditions. The use of different sets of information clearly affected the priority rankings. South African Chiroptera and Carnivora was used as a case study to addresses whether a simple measure of taxonomic diversity can be used as a proxy for different measures of phylogenetic diversity in determining regional conservation priority of taxa, when such information is limited. Evidence does suggest that the utilisation of the simple taxonomic diversity measure may provide the appropriate information on evolutionary diversity. Two theoretical concepts were proposed to address some potential shortcomings in the conservation prioritisation arena. The Orange List method offers a system to identify “species [or taxa] of high national importance or of high conservation value” (South African National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act 2004). In turn the Green Data List essentially represents a radical shift in the traditional approach to the management of both threatened and invasive taxa. Throughout this thesis, evidence do point to smaller mammals being of high conservation concern in South Africa, with the members from the Orders Rodentia, Chiroptera and Insectivora being constantly identified as high conservation priority. Apart from contributing to our current understanding of the conservation importance/priority of South Africa mammals, this current thesis has resulted in a robust understanding of various assessment techniques. / Thesis (DPhil (Zoology))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Zoology and Entomology / unrestricted

The thesis is focused on the terrorism after the attacks of 09/11, which is a key factor in its considering as a one of the most serious security threats in the 21st century. The thesis deals with a perception of the terrorist threat, particularly if it corresponds with reality and what it is influenced by or constructed by. Further the thesis is concerned about "the war on terrorism" as a reaction on the attacks which has become an American national mantra. It is tried to find out if the reaction was adequate in relation with seriousness of the attacks, if it was effective in regard of fulfilling its aims and if it was legitimate in comparison with our values and moral principles.

Reaction times (RTs) are a valuable measure for assessing cognitive processes. However, RTs are susceptible to confounds and therefore variable. Exposure to threat, for example, speeds up or slows down responses. Distinct task types to some extent account for differential effects of threat on RTs. But also do inter-individual differences like trait anxiety. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we investigated whether activation within the amygdala, a brain region closely linked to the processing of threat, may also function as a predictor of RTs, similar to trait anxiety scores. After threat conditioning by means of aversive electric shocks, 45 participants performed a choice RT task during alternating 30 s blocks in the presence of the threat conditioned stimulus [CS+] or of the safe control stimulus [CS-]. Trait anxiety was assessed with the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and participants were median split into a high- and a low-anxiety subgroup. We tested three hypotheses: (1) RTs will be faster during the exposure to threat compared to the safe condition in individuals with high trait anxiety. (2) The amygdala fMRI signal will be higher in the threat condition compared to the safe condition. (3) Amygdala fMRI signal prior to a RT trial will be correlated with the corresponding RT. We found that, the high-anxious subgroup showed faster responses in the threat condition compared to the safe condition, while the low-anxious subgroup showed no significant difference in RTs in the threat condition compared to the safe condition. Though the fMRI analysis did not reveal an effect of condition on amygdala activity, we found a trial-by-trial correlation between blood-oxygen-level-dependent signal within the right amygdala prior to the CRT task and the subsequent RT. Taken together, the results of this study showed that exposure to threat modulates task performance. This modulation is influenced by personality trait. Additionally and most importantly, activation in the amygdala predicts behavior in a simple task that is performed during the exposure to threat. This finding is in line with “attentional capture by threat”—a model that includes the amygdala as a key brain region for the process that causes the response slowing.

The purpose of this thesis is to reveal some of the behavioral characteristics of a specific type of laughter that I term "feigned laughter," and how it is used in the context of face-threatening-utterances (FTUs), or utterances that threaten the face needs of an individual.

Russia has since the beginning of the Cold War been a security problem and a threat to the Scandinavian countries, this considered by the countries' respective intelligence service, actors that are analysing Russia and the threat to the countries. However, information about Russia as a threat from the intelligence services' own perspective has so far been limited to information related to the Cold War period. This study thus aims to fill the research gap that exists on how intelligence services currently view Russia and contribute to more knowledge about how they view the threat from Russia, through their annual reports concerning the years 2012-2019. These annual reports are published by the intelligence services and describe their focus areas. This thesis uses a qualitative method to study the annual reports. To analyse what emerged from the annual reports, three different analytical frameworks are used: Buzan’s expanded security concept, the regional security complex theory and the balance of threat theory. What has emerged from examining these annual reports is that the threat from Russia has become increasingly complex and that Russia today and in contrast to the Cold War period, operates not only in the traditional military and political sector, but also in the economic and the societal sector. Based on the intelligence services' annual reports, Russia has increased as a threat and affects more regions concerning the security than its own. In order to be able to fully understand Scandinavia's region and security, Russia as a threat to the countries must be included. Sweden has not chosen to respond to the threat from Russia by joining NATO, where both Denmark and Norway are already members. The three Scandinavian countries have responded to the threat from Russia by increasing their focus on the national defence.