This study investigated and described the manner in which school leaders in the Gauteng North province of South Africa manage substitute educators as part of a strategy to manage educator absenteeism. This study attempted to uncover what management strategies are in place when educators cannot attend to their educational duties. This qualitative case study was guided by the following research question: “How do school leaders manage substitute educators in the Northern Gauteng province?” Using a conceptual framework made up of the elements of management, namely planning, organising, leading, and controlling (van der Westhuizen, 2003), the researcher collected data using semi-structured interviews with school principals. In selecting the first research site both purposive and convenience sampling was used - the criteria for the identification of the first school was whether it uses substitute educators, while the Northern Gauteng province was selected on the basis of convenience as it is within close geographic location to the researcher. Snowball sampling was employed to identify other schools in the Northern Gauteng province that use substitute educators. Ultimately, the study involved five principals that utilize substitute educators on a regular basis. The researcher determined that the main reasons for utilizing substitute educators are for maternity leave for female educators, illnesses like cancer, the hospitalisation of educators for surgery, and also for urgent private affairs and PILIR leave. Schools are lacking policies regarding their substitute educators, which can lead to hindrances in the utilization of substitute educators. All schools have difficulty in finding substitute educators with the ability to teach languages, especially for Afrikaans Home Language, and to a lesser extent English Home Language and English First Additional Language. Other subjects that are challenging to find suitable substitute educators for are Mathematics and Physical Science. The researcher also determined that principals are mainly responsible for the planning of the utilisation of substitute educators, and to a lesser extent the SMT’s. A factor that hampers the appointment of appropriate substitute educators at schools is the availability of finances. Some schools are not able to pay competitive salaries to substitute educators, although they attempt to remunerate them on the same scale as permanent educators. Due to the fact of better remuneration at other schools, quality substitute educators are often lost. The researcher discovered that newly appointed substitute educators’ progress is continuously monitored to ensure that they are well adjusted and that all issues are addressed. The majority of substitute educators are females who were in the teaching profession but left due to family reasons or because they did not want to commit to a specific school. Furthermore, the researcher discovered that the greatest challenge for schools is not knowing in advance when educators were going to be absent. Some educators wait until the last moment to inform the principal of their absence from school. A further challenge depends on the ability of the school to manage a substitute educator. An inexperienced principal may have more difficulty to address this matter. However, most schools have adequate procedures in place to monitor and control the use of substitute educators. Time is of the essence because of the tempo at which education in South Africa takes place. Recommendations for the management of substitute educators include the design and implementation of a compulsory, comprehensive, and focused school policy on the management of substitute educators. More support from the GDE would benefit schools when they are in need of a substitute educator, perhaps even by adjusting their own policy. Substitute educators that are regularly utilised at a school must be actively involved in professional development, especially regarding discipline. Schools need to create strategies to give feedback to substitute educators when they have completed their stint. Finally, the creation of a proficient data base of all educators who desire to do substitute teaching may prove to be quite useful. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2016. / Education Management and Policy Studies / MEd / Unrestricted

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Master of Science / Animal Sciences and Industry / Teresa L. Douthit / Abrupt dietary changes increase a horse’s risk for developing gastrointestinal diseases, such as colic or laminitis. Understanding the impact of various feeds and feeding practices on feeding behavior and gastrointestinal function creates a whole-animal perspective that allows for a more holistic interpretation of the effects of abrupt dietary changes on the hindgut environment. Unfortunately, few reports exist that have examined the effects of abrupt dietary changes in the horse. This study was designed to determine the effects of various abrupt dietary changes on the hindgut environment. In 4 sequential experiments, horses were exposed to an abrupt change from a baseline ration to a complete pelleted diet, an abrupt change from a baseline ration to a 100% grass hay diet, an abrupt change from a prairie hay ration to an alfalfa hay ration, and an abrupt change from a baseline ration to a large concentrate meal. These dietary challenges were chosen to mimic real-world scenarios that horse owners are likely to encounter. These experiments were arranged into a longitudinal trial in which the effects of the abrupt dietary change on cecal and fecal pH, total lactate and volatile fatty acid (VFA) concentrations, cecal lactate-utilizing bacterial populations, and fecal dry matter (DM) were compared to values obtained while horses were consuming the baseline diet. In the first experiment, decreased cecal (P ˂ 0.0001) and fecal (P ˂ 0.0001) pH values combined with increased cecal total lactate (P ˂ 0.001) and fecal VFA concentrations (P ˂ 0.0001) indicate that the abrupt change to a complete pelleted diet disrupted the stability of the hindgut environment. Because cecal pH values were below 6.0, this dietary challenge may be significant enough to elicit subclinical fermentative acidosis and, thereby, increase colic risk. The dietary change to grass hay had little impact on the hindgut environment, as pH, total lactate, and VFA concentrations remained stable (P ≥ 0.05). In general, horses may well tolerate an abrupt increase in the fibrous component of the diet and the elimination of concentrate, a dietary shift that presents a more natural diet to the horse. The abrupt change to alfalfa hay elicited alterations in cecal pH (P ˂ 0.01), total lactate (P ˂ 0.0001) and VFA concentrations (P ˂ 0.05), and lactate-utilizing bacterial populations; however, fecal parameters varied little in response to the dietary change (P ≥ 0.05), indicating that the distal hindgut may be more tolerant to abrupt changes in forage sources than the cecal environment. Here, the potentially adverse shifts in cecal parameters indicate that an abrupt change in hay type and quality alters the fermentative environment of the proximal hindgut and may increase a horse’s risk for gastrointestinal disease. Similarly, the abrupt introduction of a large concentrate meal elicited a decrease in cecal pH (P ˂ 0.005) along with increases in total lactate (P ˂ 0.001) and VFA concentrations (P ˂ 0.05) in the cecum that were consistent with previously reported experiments in which horses were presented with large increases in dietary concentrates. Notable shifts in lactate-utilizing bacterial growth curves were also observed. Overall, these results provide evidence of environmental alterations in the equine hindgut that support epidemiological reports that associate abrupt changes in the amount and type of concentrate, hay type and quality, and forage:concentrate ratio with increased risk for gastrointestinal disease in horses.

Purpose: This paper aims to explore if organizational affiliation as a private and public organization influences the motives behind utilizing management consulting. Our topic, management consulting, has been widely discussed both in academic and non-academic settings and the client perspective in management consulting have to some extent received academic attention. We found it interesting to explore the client perspective through a lens about the effect organizational affiliation has on organization's motives on utilizing management consulting. Methodology: This study has a qualitative research method with an inductive research approach. Our data collection was conducted through interviews with participants from both the public and the private sector that was involved in purchasing management consultants in their organizations. We analyzed our empirical material with a qualitative content analysis that help us code and develop categories in our material. Findings: The findings in our study implicates that motives behind utilizing management consultants differ between public and private sector in how they perceive management consulting and what their expectations on the consultant are. Through our empirical material and data analysis we have been able to detect differences in how the private and public sector perceives management consulting and influencing factors, which in turn affects the motives for purchasing management consulting services in the organization.

A review of the literature indicates that the understanding of the mixing phenomena in anaerobic digesters is limited and the ability to measure digester mixing characteristics is lacking. Moreover, rheological characteristics of the sludge are largely ignored. The need for a more thorough understanding of fundamental mixing relationships and the ability to measure these relationships in the anaerobic digester is recognized. To this end, investigations using experimental and numerical methods to visualize flow patterns and quantify mixing that impact biogas yields is reported. Results from this research identifies optimum mixing regimes for digesters depending on their sludge rheology, operational regimes, digester dimensions and mixing systems, and also produces an industrial guide to improve digester design. The results show that in order to accurately predict the optimum mixing regime for a particular anaerobic digester, it is necessary to determine to what extent biogas output is dependent upon, and can be influenced by flow patterns in an anaerobic digester. These flows are in turn determined by physical characteristics of the digester, the feed regime, the mixing system and the rheological properties of the sludge. Mixing regimes are tailored to produce flow patterns that could potentially increase biogas production and/or reduce mixing energy input of the digester. An all-inclusive anaerobic digester model is developed and validated using advanced experimental techniques that can be used to optimize the digestion process in terms of physical and biological parameters. In either case, the model provides an ongoing management of anaerobic digester process to improve overall energy yield from the digester and reduce its environmental impact.

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College counseling centers (CCCs) have experienced funding and staffing setbacks in recent years, resulting in higher caseloads, counselor burnout, and bloated waitlists. Mobile Health (mHealth) interventions may offer a cost-effective and innovative solution. The authors developed ACT Daily, a prototype mHealth app based in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). This study examined the feasibility and possible efficacy of ACT Daily as a brief intervention for individuals placed on CCC waitlists. A sample of 11 depressed/anxious clients waitlisted at a local CCC enrolled in the study, which followed a pre-post, open trial design. Participants received a brief online training that covered the basics of ACT and introduced the app’s functions and features. For the following 2 weeks, participants were asked to use ACT Daily every day. Results displayed high acceptability, usability, and satisfaction ratings across users. Significant improvements were observed on most ACT process measures, including overall psychological inflexibility. Findings from app usage and self-report measures supported ACT Daily’s ability to promote skill use in the moment. Analyses of in-app data indicated that ACT Daily’s skills were potentially effective in the moment and increased in strength over time. Furthermore, ACT Daily appeared to serve as a helpful pre-therapy tool due to significant reductions in depression and anxiety symptoms, as well as improvements in emotional self-awareness. Finally, the online training appeared to equip users with a sufficient comprehension of core ACT components and app training. While this pilot study suffered from a low sample size, this pattern of results encourages the application and dissemination of ACT mHealth apps as an added support for waitlisted CCC clients suffering from depression or anxiety. Moreover, it appears that ACT Daily may have enabled users to acquire, strengthen, and potentially generalize useful ACT skills. It is theorized that the app facilitated in-the-moment learning of skills that could then be applied directly to real-world contexts. Future research is advised to target larger, more diverse samples, implement a randomized controlled trial design, add objective behavioral and physiological measures, incorporate all six ACT processes, and integrate client feedback into future iterations of ACT Daily.

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