The way the vast majority of us think about the self, consciousness and free will is incorrect – dramatically out of step with what the majority of neuroscientists, cognitive psychologists scientists and analytic philosophers have to say about those subjects. One consequence of these erroneous views is that the manner in which the majority of us understand ‘freedom’ – as a metaphysical term and as a political concept -- is sharply at odds with how things actually are. We replicate similar kinds of errors when we think about how various forms of human association are constructed and how change actually occurs within such associations. Once again, epistemological fallacies with regard to social theory have the consequence of leading us to attribute far greater ‘freedom’ to groups than they actually possess. This second misattribution of autonomy results in institutional political arrangements and constitutional doctrines at odds with what we know about the human condition. As things stand, the various models of political theory with which the South African Constitutional Court operates rest upon a belief that the rights and freedoms enshrined in the Final Constitution should enable individuals to exercise relatively unfettered control over decisions about the intimate relationships and the various practices deemed critical to their self-understanding. However, individual autonomy as a foundation for constitutional theory overemphasizes dramatically the actual space for self-defining choices. In truth, our experience of personhood, of self-consciousness, is a function of a complex set of narratives over which we exercise little in the way of (self) control. The involuntary and arational nature of identity formation – at the level of both the individual and the social -- requires a constitutional theory that supplants the model of a rational individual moral agent which undergirds much of our current jurisprudence with a vision of the self that is more appropriately located within and determined by the associations to which we all belong. Despite the involuntary and arational nature of identity formation, we can live within communities that determine the greater part of the meaning we make, and still remain committed to the possibility of significant change (for the better) within those communities. This thesis then goes on to explain how a commitment to experimentalism in the political domain, when married to a robust conception of basic entitlements and citizenship, services human flourishing. (To expand the conditions for flourishing, however, is not to make us metaphysically ‘free’ to ‘will’ our actions: a commitment to flourishing reflects an attempt to create an environment in which all inhabitants of South Africa have the opportunity to live lives worth valuing.) Experimental constitutionalism dovetails with a very modest, naturalized account of flourishing because both accounts (1) take the radical givenness of existing constitutive attachments seriously; (2) recognize the boundedness of individual and collective rationality; and (3) describe various kinds of feedback mechanisms that allow for error correction and the enhancement of the conditions of being. Experimental constitutionalism, in particular, enables more citizens to see what ‘works’ and what doesn’t – both with respect to the means and the ends of our existence. Experimental constitutionalism offers the promise of improving the conditions for being by suggesting a range of alterations in constitutional doctrine and a host of changes in the manner in which many political institutions operate. In South Africa, the innovations associated with experimental constitutional design embrace: (1) a doctrine of constitutional supremacy that maintains a meaningful equilibrium with a doctrine of separation of powers, and thus sets relatively clear guidelines for how authority for constitutional interpretation might best be shared by the judiciary, the legislature, the executive and non-state-actors; (2) the use of various standard judicial mechanisms – such as cost orders, court procedures, amici and intervenors, expanded constitutional jurisdiction and structural injunctions – to create bubbles of participatory democracy better able (than courts or legislatures) to resolve various kinds of polycentric conflict; (3) an approach to limitations analysis that provides a better process than ‘balancing’ for experimentalist adjudication; and (4) greater roles for Chapter 9 Institutions with respect to investigation, information-sharing and norm-setting; and (5) a principle of democracy that invites public participation in law-making that will both elicit better information about which government policies work best and effect widespread reflection about the meaning of those constitutional norms that govern our lives. The thesis then (a) mines the brief historical record of two important policy areas – Housing and Education – to show how the principles of experimental constitutionalism have already been put to work and (b) re-examines six Constitutional Court cases to demonstrate how the dual commitment to experimental constitutionalism and flourishing might generate more optimal outcomes. / Thesis (LLD)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Public Law / unrestricted

The purpose of the present thesis is to apprise a reader of issues of tools for supporting team collaboration via web 2.0. These tools allow workmates to effectively collaborate from different geographical locations without the need for organizing time-consuming and often unproductive meetings. For example, such tools support teams in the way that ensures an access to shared documents for all project co-workers. A theoretical part of the thesis aims to introduce select definitions of terms which relates to this tools -- the terms collaboration and web 2.0, and furthermore to give reader an overview of existing tools for supporting team collaboration. A practical part of the thesis is aimed at description of one particular tool in the form of instruction manual which can be used by students in the homework process. The practical part also includes realization of research on student's experience with introduced tools. The research has a form of questionnaire. Finally author evaluates results of the research.

This thesis analyzes how healthcare professionals experience their own safety at work focusing on dementia care. Furthermore, this essay will look into what factors have influenced these feelings towards their personal safety. The method used in this study is a qualitative approach. In-depth interviews were conducted with seven participants. The aim of this approach is to achieve a deeper understanding of how these workers feel and act based on their level of safety. The collected data has been divided into different categories and analyzed individually with the selected theories. The theories used for the purpose of this thesis was Goffman’s notion of dramaturgy that includes theatrical performance where he explains how humans interact with each other and how they maintain a specific role to impress the audience. Additionally, Hochschild’s theory of emotional labor, deep- and surface acting has been used to analyze the study. Overall, the results of this study shows that in order to maintain the feeling of safety, it is important for the participant to have a feeling that their work has a meaningful purpose. It is also important for them to have a strong support system from their colleagues and to have a good competence and the right education in regard to their work. Even though the participants were exposed to different kinds of violence, they still felt safe to a great extent. / Denna studie studerar hur vårdpersonal upplever sin egen säkerhet på arbetsplatsen med fokus på demensomsorg. Uppsatsen kommer även att undersöka vilka faktorer som har påverkat deras känslor gentemot deras trygghet. Metoden som används i denna studie är av kvalitativ ansats där djupgående intervjuer genomförts med sju deltagare. Syftet med denna datainsamlingsmetod är att uppnå en djupare förståelse för hur studiens deltagare känner och agerar utifrån deras trygghetskänslor. De insamlade materialet har delats in i olika kategorier som sedan har analyserats individuellt utifrån de utvalda teorierna. Teorierna som har applicerats för denna studie var Goffmans dramaturgiska teori som innefattar framträdande där han förklarar hur människor interagerar med varandra och hur de upprätthåller en specifik roll för att imponera på publiken. Vidare har Hochschilds teori om emotionellt arbete, djup- och ytverkan använts för att analysera studien. Resultaten av denna studie visar att för att upprätthålla känslan av trygghet är det viktigt för deltagarna att känna att deras arbete har ett meningsfullt syfte. Det är också viktigt för dem att ha ett starkt stödsystem från sina kollegor och att ha en rätt kompetens och lämplig utbildning gällande deras arbete. Trots att deltagarna utsattes för olika typer av våld kände de sig fortfarande säkra i en större utsträckning.

L’évolution des environnements de travail, tant par leurs configurations que par la valorisation de certains modes de travail, s’est caractérisée dans chacune des tendances depuis l’ère industrielle. Actuellement, l’aire ouverte compose l’aménagement de ces espaces corporatifs, où la tendance se définit comme étant collaborative. Or, le contrôle de l’environnement peut influencer positivement la satisfaction des travailleurs, mais demeure difficile à adopter à travers un aménagement ouvert et partagé. Ainsi, cette recherche tend à vérifier l’importance des concepts découlant du contrôle de l’environnement de travail, par exemple la collaboration, la privacité, l’individualisation du confort, l’appropriation, la territorialité ainsi que la personnalisation, dans un type d’environnement de travail précis : l’espace de cotravail. Le principal objectif de cette étude est de mettre en relation la satisfaction des travailleurs issus des générations X et Y avec leurs perceptions quant à l’importance du contrôle de leur environnement de travail. L’approche méthodologique de cette recherche est composée de l’élaboration du cadre théorique ainsi que d’une collecte de données ramifiée par trois entrevues menées auprès de spécialistes, d’un questionnaire complété par des travailleurs louant un abonnement dans un espace de cotravail ainsi que deux activités d’observation menées dans ce même environnement. Une analyse des données a été réalisée par une triangulation des résultats, autant pour les données empiriques recueillies dans le cadre théorique que par les trois outils de cueillette. Les résultats de cette étude tendent à montrer que la demande pour les espaces collaboratifs ne correspond pas aux réels besoins des travailleurs. Par contre, une forte importance face au contrôle individualisé du confort, de l’adaptabilité des composants de l’espace ainsi que des modes et des méthodes de travail s’est démarquée à travers les concepts étudiés dans cette recherche. Plusieurs conclusions peuvent en être tirées, notamment la considération des ratios relatifs aux cinq modes de travail (e.g. le focus, la collaboration et la socialisation) lors de la configuration de l’espace ainsi que la conception d’aménagements flexibles où le contrôle individualisé peut être aisément adopté. / The evolution of work environments, both in their configurations and in the enhancement of certain work modes, has been characterized in each trends since the industrial era. Currently, the open space makes up the layout of these corporate spaces, where the trend is defined as being collaborative. However, environment control can positively influence workers’ satisfaction, but remains difficult to adopt through open and shared planning. Thus, this research tends to verify the importance of the concepts derived from the control of the work environment, such as collaboration, privacy, individualization of comfort, appropriation, territoriality and personalization, in a specific type of work environment : the coworking space. The main objective of this study is to relate the satisfaction of workers from generations X and Y with their perceptions of the importance of controlling their work environment. The methodological approach of this research is composed of the development of a theoretical framework, as well as a data collection ramified by three interviews with experts, a questionnaire completed by workers renting a subscription in a coworking space and two observation activities carried out in this same environment. A data analysis was carried out by triangulating the results, both for the empirical data collected in the theorical framework and by the three collection tools. The results of this study tend to show that the demand for collaborative spaces does not correspond to the real needs of workers. On the other hand, a strong emphasis on individualized control of comfort, adaptability of space components, and work modes and methods stood out through the concepts studied in this research. Several conclusions can be drawn, notably the consideration of ratios relative to the five work modes (e.g. focus, collaboration and socialization) when configuring the space and the design of flexible arrangements where individualized control can be easily adopted.

Web applications offering real-time collaboration support (e.g. Google Docs) allow geographically dispersed users to edit the very same document simultaneously, which is appealing to end-users mainly because of two application characteristics. On the one hand, provided real-time capabilities supersede traditional document merging and document locking techniques that distract users from the content creation process. On the other hand, web applications free end-users from lengthy setup procedures and allow for instant application access. However, implementing collaborative web applications is a time-consuming and complex endeavor since offering real-time collaboration support requires two specific collaboration services. First, a concurrency control service has to ensure that documents are synchronized in real-time and that emerging editing conicts (e.g. if two users change the very same word concurrently) are resolved automatically. Second, a workspace awareness service has to inform the local user about actions and activities of other participants (e.g. who joined the session or where are other participants working). Implementing and integrating these two collaboration services is largely ine cient due to (1) the lack of necessary collaboration functionality in existing libraries, (2) incompatibilities of collaboration frameworks with widespread web development approaches as well as (3) the need for massive source code changes to anchor collaboration support. Therefore, we propose a Generic Collaboration Infrastructure (GCI) that supports the e cient development of web-based groupware in various ways. First, the GCI provides reusable concurrency control functionality and generic workspace awareness support. Second, the GCI exposes numerous interfaces to consume these collaboration services in a exible manner and without requiring invasive source code changes. And third, the GCI is linked to a development methodology that e ciently guides developers through the development of web-based groupware. To demonstrate the improved development e ciency induced by the GCI, we conducted three user studies encompassing developers and end-users. We show that the development e ciency can be increased in terms of development time when adopting the GCI. Moreover, we also demonstrate that implemented collaborative web applications satisfy end-user needs with respect to established software quality characteristics (e.g. usability, reliability, etc.). / Webbasierte, kollaborative Echtzeitanwendungen (z.B. Google Docs) erlauben es geografisch verteilten Nutzern, Dokumente gemeinschaftlich und simultan zu bearbeiten. Die Implementierung kollaborativer Echtzeitanwendungen ist allerdings aufwendig und komplex, da einerseits eine Nebenläufigkeitskontrolle von Nöten ist und andererseits die Nachvollziehbarkeit von nicht-lokalen Interaktionen mit dem gemeinsamen virtuellen Arbeitsraum gewährleistet sein muss (z.B. wer editiert wo). Um die Entwicklung kollaborativer Echtzeitanwendungen effizient zu gestalten, wurde eine Generische Kollaborationsinfrastruktur (GKI) entwickelt. Diese GKI stellt sowohl eine Nebenläufigkeitskontrolle als auch Komponenten zur Nachvollziehbarkeit von nicht-lokalen Interaktionen auf eine wiederverwendbare und nicht-invasive Art und Weise zur Verfügung. In drei dedizierten Studien, die sowohl Entwickler als auch Endanwender umfassten, wurde die Entwicklungseffizienz der GKI nachgewiesen. Dabei wurde die Entwicklungszeit, der Umfang des Quelltextes als auch die Gebrauchstauglichkeit analysiert.

This thesis project started out with an ambition to inspire more people to discover the mesmerizing landscape of the inner parts of northern Sweden by making it more accessible and attractive to persons usually not looking for outdoor adventures or the solitude and silence of wilderness.   By that initial aspiration I was led into an investigation of how constant connectedness affect us in everyday life, what performing “work” require and how the presence of nature and a challenging climate could be used as resources; offering more than nice views or weather to be sheltered from. Not only is the nature in the north fascinating on its own but the vast areas of almost untouched nature is becoming something unique in the world, an amazing resource most Swedes are more or less unaware of.   This project aims to test an alternative way of working, exploring the opportunities the technology provide us with while also offering time for reflection and inspiration. The program is a version of a work retreat; a facility that offers temporary work spaces away from the office and everyday life, allowing new social constellations, new ideas and work processes. / Detta examensarbete började med en ambition och en önskan om att inspirera fler att upptäcka det trollbindande landskapet i norra Sveriges inland genom att göra det mer lättillgängligt och attraktivt för personer som vanligtvis inte söker sig till vildmarksäventyr eller stillheten och tystnaden i skogen. Från den inledande ambitionen letade sig arbetet vidare till vitt skilda undersökningar av hur konstant uppkoppling (eller en ständig nåbarhet) påverkar människor, vad termen ”att arbeta” innebär samt hur natur och ett utmanande klimat kan användas som resurser och erbjuda mer än vacker utsikt eller ett väder man måste skyddas från. De stora orörda vidderna i norr är inte bara fascinerande i sig själva utan de börjar bli något helt unikt i världen, en fantastisk tillgång som de flesta svenskar är mer eller mindre omedvetna om. Projektet strävar efter att undersöka alternativa sätt att arbeta; att utforska möjligheterna som öppnas för oss med hjälp av dagens teknologi samtidigt som tid för reflektion och inspiration prioriteras. Programmet är en uppdaterad version av konferensanläggning, en plats som erbjuder temporära arbetsplatser långt från kontor och vardagsliv för att på så vis möjliggöra nya sociala samspel, tillföra nya idéer och arbetsprocesser.

Цель магистерской диссертации: на основе исследования потребностей участников общего рабочего процесса спроектировать и реализовать решение для организации деловых встреч в гибридном формате, объединяющем реальное офисное пространство и виртуальную переговорную комнату. / The purpose of the master's thesis is to design and to develop a solution for organizing business meetings in a hybrid format that combines real office space and a virtual meeting room based on a study of the needs of participants in the common workflow.

Video editing is a process where multiple roles are required to collaborate. Despite this, the design of video editing software does not easily support collaboration. Hence, this study investigates how the video editing workflow can be improved by designing a user interface that supports collaboration. This is achieved with focus on simultaneous work performed in a remote workspace. Firstly, a design workshop was conducted with professional video editors. Secondly, user interface mockups were created. Lastly, the mockups were evaluated in a mockup test and subsequently updated based on the feedback. The study proposes five design concepts that collectively aim to support collaboration through workspace awareness by focusing on enhancing communication to make the workflow more time efficient. The evaluation of the design concepts indicates their potential to facilitate the collaborators collective work and communication. Therefore, the results suggest that the workflow has the possibility to be improved by including collaborative features in video editing software. / Videoredigering är en process där flera roller behöver samarbeta. Trots detta stöder designen av videoredigeringsprogram inte samarbete. Därför undersöker denna studie hur arbetsflödet för videoredigering kan förbättras genom att utforma ett användargränssnitt som stöder samarbete. Detta uppnås med fokus på arbete som utförs samtidigt på distans. Först genomfördes en designworkshop med professionella videoredigerare. Sedan skapades mockups för användargränssnittet. Slutligen utvärderades mockuperna i en mockup-testning och uppdaterades därefter baserat på feedbacken. Studien föreslår fem designkoncept som tillsammans syftar till att stödja samarbete genom arbetsplatsmedvetenhet genom att fokusera på att förbättra kommunikationen för att göra arbetsflödet mer tidseffektivt. Utvärderingen av designkoncepten indikerar deras potential att underlätta medarbetarnas kollektiva arbete och kommunikation. Därför tyder resultaten på att arbetsflödet har möjlighet att förbättras genom att inkludera samarbetsfunktioner i videoredigeringsprogram.

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As the COVID-19 pandemic became widespread around the world, the need to be able to work from home became clear to help reduce the spread of the virus, while at the same time showing that working from home could be successful in the future. While working from home can be positive, it also has drawback as reduce social interactions, hard to set working boundaries and more. This paper examines the viability to introduce a decentralized office space trough environmental sustainability, economic sustainability and social sustainability for a reference apartment building and an energy renovated one compared to a centralized office space. This study shows that working from a decentralized office space will reduce emissions with better utilization of the apartment building, saving the companies money and having a reasonable payback period for investors, while giving employees better personaleconomic and more free time without compromising on the social sustainability from not meeting people and having a hard time to different on working hours and non-working hours.