The objective of this dissertation is to investigate the factors that influence the design of wide-area wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) optical networks. Wide-area networks are presented as communication networks capable of transporting voice and data communication over large geographical areas. These networks typically span a whole country, region or even continent.The rapid development and maturation of WDM technology over the last decade have been well-received commercially and warrants the development of skills in the field of optical network design.The fundamental purpose of all communication networks and technologies is to satisfy the demand of end-users through the provisioning of capacity over shared and limited physical infrastructure. Consideration of the business aspects related to communications traffic and the grooming thereof are crucial to developing an understanding of customer requirements in terms of the selection and quality of services and applications. Extensive communication networks require complex management techniques that aim to ensure high levels of reliability and revenue generation.An integrated methodology is presented for the design of wide-area WDM optical networks. The methodology harnesses physical, logical, and virtual topologies together with routing and channel assignment (RCA) and clustering processes to enhance objectivity of the design process. A novel approach, based on statistical clustering using the Ward linkage as similarity metric, is introduced for solving the problem of determining the number and positions of the backbone nodes of a wide-area network, otherwise defined as the top level hub nodes of the multi-level network model. The influence of the geographic distribution of network traffic, and the intra/inter-cluster traffic ratios are taken into consideration through utilisation of modified gravity models and novel network node weighting. / Dissertation (MEng)--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering / unrestricted

In recent years South Africans have become accustomed to the fact that the local sphere of government is part and parcel of the new democratic structure of government in the Republic. Today, all local governments are clothed with a new status, a new autonomy and a distinctive character with specifically entrenched constitutional powers and objects. Notwithstanding its newfound importance, all local government institutions had to be transformed and restructured to fit into an entirely new constitutional framework. Such a restructuring process was an often arduous and time consuming process. The restructuring furthermore required an entire overhaul of all municipal authorities since the new Constitution requires mainly parliament to add substance to a simple constitutional framework. Parliament has recently completed its constitutional obligations in respect of the restructuring of local government and a completely new legal order regulating and managing all local government structures in South Africa has been developed and enacted. All municipal role players must now constructively and purposefully implement and enforce the various new legal requirements. This new research under the title, The restructuring of Local Government under the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, now seeks to systemize and structure the new local government legal dispensation. Spanning over 22 chapters, this work covers almost all legal aspects of the new local government dispensation and addresses, inter alia, aspects such as the new status of local governments, the impact of the Constitution on municipal affairs, the various objectives and challenges facing all municipalities, the new legal nature of local government institutions, a discussion of the principles of co-operative government relevant to the local sphere of governance, a look at the new models of local authorities, the demarcation of municipal boundaries, the composition and functioning of local government structures, the role and importance of traditional leadership in municipal decision making, an overview of the entrenched powers and functions of municipalities, aspects concerning municipal services and sustainable service delivery, as well as the important principles relating to municipal finances and fiscal management. Copyright 2006, University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. Please cite as follows: Bekink, B 2006, The Restructuring (Systemization) of Local Government under the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, LLD thesis, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd < http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-12042006-163249 / > / Thesis (Doctor Legum (Public Law))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Public Law / unrestricted

Cluster and discriminant analysis belong to basic classification methods. Using cluster analysis can be a disordered group of objects organized into several internally homogeneous classes or clusters. Discriminant analysis creates knowledge based on the jurisdiction of existing classes classification rule, which can be then used for classifying units with an unknown group membership. The aim of this thesis is a comparison of discriminant analysis and different methods of cluster analysis. To reflect the distances between objects within each cluster, squeared Euclidean and Mahalanobis distances are used. In total, there are 28 datasets analyzed in this thesis. In case of leaving correlated variables in the set and applying squared Euclidean distance, Ward´s method classified objects into clusters the most successfully (42,0 %). After changing metrics on the Mahalanobis distance, the most successful method has become the furthest neighbor method (37,5 %). After removing highly correlated variables and applying methods with Euclidean metric, Ward´s method was again the most successful in classification of objects (42,0%). From the result implies that cluster analysis is more precise when excluding correlated variables than when leaving them in a dataset. The average result of discriminant analysis for data with correlated variables and also without correlated variables is 88,7 %.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Introduction: National community health worker (CHW) programmes are to an increasing extent being implemented in health systems globally, mirrored in South Africa in the ward-based outreach team (WBOT) strategy. In many countries, including South Africa, a major challenge impacting the performance and sustainability of scaled-up CHW programmes is ensuring adequate support from and supervision by the local health system. Supervisory systems, where they exist, are usually corrective and hierarchical in nature, and implementation remains poor. In the South African context, the absence of any guidance on CHW supportive supervision has led to varied practices across the country. Improved approaches to supportive supervision are considered critical for CHW programme performance. However, there is relatively little understanding of how this can be done sustainably at scale, and effective CHW supervisory models remain elusive. Research to date has mostly positioned supervision as a technical process rather than a set of relationships, with the former testing specific interventions rather than developing holistic approaches attuned to local contexts. This doctoral study was exploratory in nature, seeking to generate an in-depth and contextualised understanding of the supervision phenomenon in one specific district in the North West Province (NWP) in South Africa. Using co-production methodology in an iterative approach, the study culminated in the formulation of a supportive supervision framework with CHWs and other frontline actors. Methods: The study was based on a holistic conceptual framework of supportive supervision, which was viewed as comprising three core functions ‒ accountability, development and support ‒ embedded in a complex and multi-level system of resources, people and relationships. To address the study objectives, the research used a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods. Three studies were conducted in a phased process: study 1 comprised a qualitative description of policy and practices in two districts related to the supervision of WBOTs; study 2 identified the main actors and mapped the supervisory system of WBOTs in the district, using social network analysis (SNA); and study 3 involved a qualitative exploration of workplace and interpersonal trust factors in the district and the supervisory system of WBOTs in the district. These three studies provided inputs for a workshop aimed at developing recommendations for a district-level, WBOT supportive supervisory framework. Four published papers reporting on the research conducted are presented in this thesis. It should be noted that the research was conducted during a turbulent political and administrative period in the NWP, when the WBOT programme changed from being a flagship programme for the country to one in crisis. This shifting context needs to be borne in mind when the findings are viewed and interpreted. Results: The study identified weaknesses in both the design and implementation of the supervisory system of WBOTs, with the absence of clear guidance resulting in WBOTs and PHC facilities performing their roles in an ad hoc manner, defined within local contexts. The study documented evidence of high internal cohesion within WBOTs and (where present) with their immediate outreach team leaders (OTLs). However, the relationships between WBOTs and the rest of the primary health care (PHC) and district health system were characterised by considerable mistrust – both towards other workers and the system as a whole. This occurred against a backdrop of increasing OTL vacancies, and the perceived abandonment of WBOT training and development systems and career opportunities. These findings are not dissimilar to those reported previously on the WBOT programme in South Africa and in programmes in other low-resource settings. Nevertheless, through its in-depth, exploratory and participatory approaches, this study provides additional insights into the phenomenon of supportive supervision. Firstly, in conceptualising supportive supervision as a set of ‘bundled’ practices within complex local health systems, the findings reflected the complexity of everyday realities and lived experiences. Secondly, through the embedded nature of the research and the phased data-collection process, the study was able to observe the impact of wider health system contexts and crises on the coalface functioning of the WBOT programme. Thirdly, the study emphasised how supportive supervision depends on healthy relational dynamics and trust relationships, and, finally, how a co-production approach can translate broad guidance, experience and theoretical understanding into meaningful, local practice owned by all the actors involved. Ultimately, the process of engagement, building relationships and forging consensus proved to be more significant than the supportive supervision framework itself. Conclusion: The lack of explicit, coherent and holistic guidance in developing CHW supportive supervision guidance and the failure to address supervision constraints at a local level undermine the performance and sustainability of CHW programmes. Effective supportive supervisory systems require bottom-up collaborative platforms characterised by active participation, sharing of local tacit knowledge and mutual learning. Supervisory systems also need to be designed in ways that promote relationships and generate trust between CHW programmes, other actors and the health system.

Bakgrund: Barnmorskans yrkesområde är inom sexuell, reproduktiv och perinatal hälsa. Detövergripande målet i barnmorskeutbildningen är att utveckla självständiga och kompetenta barnmorskor. Den verksamhetsförlagda utbildningen (VFU) motsvarar ungefär halva studietiden och är en viktig del i barnmorskeutbildningen. Förlossningsavdelningen är en viktig miljö för barnmorskestudenter att inhämta kunskaper om graviditet och förlossning. Motiv: VFU på förlossningsavdelning är en känslomässig och intensiv period för barnmorskestudenter. Barnmorskestudenters uppfattningar om vad som främjar utveckling behöver studeras vidare för att kunna optimera framtida verksamhetsförlagda utbildningar. Syfte: Det övergripande syftet var att belysa barnmorskestudenters upplevelser av verksamhetsförlagd utbildning på förlossningsavdelning.  Metod: En kvalitativ design med induktiv ansats har använts. Semistrukturerade intervjuer med sju barnmorskestudenter i Sverige genomfördes. Intervjuerna har analyserats genom en kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Resultat: Genom analysprocessen framkom ett tema, VFU på förlossningsavdelning – en känslomässig berg- och dalbana samt tre kategorier; Att både ge och ta emot stöd där en mängd faktorer som kan påverka mötet med kvinnan och stödpersonen beskrevs. Andra kategorin Att hålla ihop hela vägen beskrev hur barnmorskestudenternas hälsa varierade samt svårigheter i att gå från en trygg yrkesroll till en studentroll. Tredje kategorin Hinder i utvecklingsprocessen visade hur Covid-19-pandemin påverkade barnmorskestudenternas VFU, optimeringar inför framtida VFU samt tankar om den framtida yrkesrollen. Åtta subkategorier bildades. Konklusion: Barnmorskestudenterna upplevde sin VFU på förlossningsavdelning som en känslomässig berg- och dalbana. Flertalet faktorer som tidigare erfarenheter, relationen till handledaren och reflektionsmöjligheter påverkade barnmorskestudenters möte med kvinnan och stödpersonen. Att belysa dessa faktorer och inkludera barnmorskestudenter i den kvinnocentrerade vården kan leda till ökat självförtroende och kompetens hos barnmorskestudenter vilket i sin tur kan leda till optimeringar av den kvinnocentrerade vården. / Background: The midwife's profession is within the sexual, reproductive and perinatalhealth. The overall purpose of midwifery education is to develop independent and competent midwives. The clinical internship is an important part of the education. The labour ward is an important environment for midwifery students to acquire knowledge about pregnancy and childbirth. Motive: Clinical internship in the labour ward is an emotional and intense period for midwifery students. Midwifery student’s perceptions of what promotes development needs to be studied further, in order to optimise future clinical internships. Aim: The aim was to investigate midwifery students experiences of clinical internship at labour wards.  Methods: A qualitative design with an inductive approach was used. Semi-structured interviews with seven midwifery students in Sweden participated. The interviews were analysed with qualitative content analysis. Result: A theme emerged, Clinical internship at the labour ward - an emotional roller coaster and three categories; To both give and receive support where a number of factors that can affect the meeting with the woman and the support person were described. Second category Holding together all the way described how the midwifery student’s health varies as well as difficulties in the student role. The third category Obstacles in the development process showed how the Covid-19-pandemic affected midwifery student’s clinical internship, optimisations and thoughts about the future professional role.  Conclusion: The clinical internship at the labour ward was described as an emotional roller coaster. Previous experiences, the relationship with the supervisor and opportunities for reflection influenced the midwifery student's encounter with the woman and the support person. Elucidating these factors and including midwifery students in women-centered care can lead to increased self-confidence and competence among midwifery students, this couldlead to optimisations of the women-centered care.

MAdmin / Department of Public and Development Administration / The study focusses on the challenges militating against community participation on the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) process in Thulamela Local Municipality (TLM) and to find strategies to be used to enhance community participation on Integrated Development Plan. The study is based on matters of community participation and IDP in order to find out how community participation in the municipalities can influence the planning process in an integrated manner. The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 (Act No. 108 of 1996) mandates local government to encourage the involvement of communities and community organisations in the matters of local government. IDP is the rightful platform to fulfil the aforementioned mandate in the local government. In this study, the researcher made use of a mixed research method where both qualitative and quantitative research methods are used. The research is qualitative in nature, but the quantitative method is also used in data interpretation, because data collected was based on the views and opinions of a large number of respondents and the analysis of results based on statistical significance. The researcher used the non-probability sampling and its subtype purposive sampling method to select the participants in this study. Questionnaires, interviews as well as literature were used to gather data in this research. Two types of data analysis were used when analysing the data. For data collected through interview, the researcher used thematic analysis (Narrative form) and for data collected through questionnaire, the researcher used International Business Machinery (IBM)- Statistical Product in Service Solutions (SPSS) Statistics V25. The researcher followed research ethics before conducting the study. The major findings of the study are: • The study found out that 38 (76%) of the respondents agreed that community members actively participate in IDP process. This is an indication that community members of Thulamela Local Municipality actively participate in IDP process. • The researcher found out that the majority of the respondents at 45 which constitutes 90% agreed that active community participation in IDP process plays an important role in the improvement of the basic service delivery. • The researcher found out that majority of the respondents at 35 which constitutes 70% of the respondents in the study agreed that community members are well informed about different types of participation in IDP process. • The researcher found out that majority of the respondents at 38 which constitutes 76% of the respondents in the study disagreed that there are enough resources to capacitate community members in order to participate actively in IDP process. v The main recommendations are: • The researcher recommends that community members should take a share of responsibility to actively participate in IDP process. Thus, the community members should consider it necessary that they strive to make community participation on IDP process fashionable. • The researcher recommends that there should be active community participation in IDP process because it plays an important role in the improvement of basic service delivery. Community participation in IDP process needs to be active for the basic service delivery to be improved. • The researcher recommends that community members should be well informed about different types of participation on IDP process. It is the responsibility of the municipality to inform community members about different types of community participation that they can use to participate in IDP process. • The researcher recommends that the municipality should make enough resources to capacitate community members in order to participate actively in IDP process available. The municipality should embark on a journey to raise funds either from other government sectors and/or private sectors. / NRF

A quantitative descriptive study was conducted to establish professional nurses’ and patients’ knowledge and understanding of laparoscopic surgery and to determine whether nurses are sufficiently knowledgeable to disseminate adequate information about laparoscopic surgery to patients. Two state hospitals based in KwaZulu-Natal where laparoscopic surgery is done were selected and the respondents were selected through convenience sampling. Data were collected by administering questionnaires to theatre nurses (n=39), ward nurses (n=87) and patients (n=42) scheduled for laparoscopic surgery. The SPSS version 15 for Windows was used to compute the results. The findings revealed that the professional nurses were not sufficiently knowledgeable about laparoscopic surgery to give adequate information to patients and the patients themselves were not fully informed about all aspects of laparoscopic surgery including the possibility of conversion to open surgery, complications and advantages and after care. There is therefore a dire need for improvement of patient education to assist patients gaining optimal recovery / Health Studies / M.A. (Health Studies)

Bakgrund: Sjuksköterskor möter patienter i livets slutskede i flertalet vårdmiljöer och därför är kunskaper i palliativ vård en av sjuksköterskors grundläggande kompetenser. Patienter kan uppleva förlust av sammanhang och efterfrågar stöd för såväl kroppsliga, själsliga, existentiella som sociala behov. Även närstående uttrycker behov av sjuksköterskors stöd. På sjukhus ger sjuksköterskor palliativ och kurativ vård parallellt på vårdavdelningar. Sjuksköterskor beskrivs av patienter som upptagna och närstående efterfrågar omsorgsfullt stöd från sjuksköterskor. Syfte: Att beskriva sjuksköterskors erfarenheter av palliativ vård i livets slutskede på vårdavdelning på sjukhus. Metod: En kvalitativ litteraturstudie med beskrivande syntes som utgår från tolv internationella artiklar ur vårdvetenskapliga tidskrifter. Resultat: I analysen identifierades två teman: Utmaningar vid vård i livets slutskede på sjukhus och sjuksköterskors stöd till patienter och närstående i livets slutskede, vilket beskrivs i totalt sju subteman. Slutsats: Examensarbetet bidrar med förståelse för att närvarande sjuksköterskor, genom att lära känna och respektera patienter och närståendes sammanhang och strategier för livets slutskede, kan vara ett stöd för en värdig död på vårdavdelningar på sjukhus. / Background: Nurses encounter end-of-life patients in different healthcare environments and knowledge in palliative care is a fundamental competence for nurses. Patients can experience a loss of coherence and request support from physical, emotional, existential and social needs. Support from nurses is also an expressed need for close ones. Nurses in hospital wards give parallel palliative and curative care. Nurses are described by patients as busy and close ones requests caring support from nurses. Aim: To describe nurses’ experiences from palliative end of life care in hospital wards. Methods: A qualitative literature review with descriptive synthesis based on twelve international articles from nursing journals. Results:Two themes were identified during the analysis: Challenges in end-of-life care in hospitals and nurses support of patients and close ones at the end of life, which was described in seven sub-themes. Conclusions: The degree project enhances the understanding that nurses who are present, can be a support for a dignified death in hospital wards, by coming to know and respecting coherence and strategies of patient and close ones at the end of life.

One aspect of the current revaluation of Victorian thought and literature is the examination of the crisis of religious faith, in which the proponents of doubt and denial took different directions: they became openly cynical and pessimistic; they turned from religion to an aesthetic substitute; or they concluded that since mankind could look only to itself for aid, the primary duties of the individual were to find a tenable creed for himself and to try to alleviate the lot of others. The movement from the agony of doubt to a serene, or at least calm, humanitarianism is the subject of this study. The discussion is limited to four novelists in whose work religious doubt and humanitarianism are overt and relatively consistent and in whose novels the intellectual thought of the day is translated into a form appealing to the middle-class reader. Their success is attested by contemporary criticism and by accounts of the sales of their books; although their work has had no permanent popularity, they were among the most discussed authors of their time.

The aim of the diploma thesis is the location and design of buildings extending the Masaryk Oncology Institute with a ward for mobile patients and a cancer prevention center together with the extension of the spectrum of the radiation clinic with proton irradiation. The proposal envisages the use of the southern slope of the area bounded by Tomešova and Roubalova streets, while a new use of the area is planned according to the new master plan of the City of Brno.