A new era for specimen databases and biodiversity information management in South Africa

We comment on the inherited legacy, current state of, and future direction of the management of biodiversity information in natural history museums in South Africa. We emphasise the importance of training and capacity development to improve the quality and integration of biodiversity information for research

'Medelyemoegheid' – die hantering van sekondêre traumatiese stres

'Compassion fatigue' – coping with secondary traumatic stress There is a cost to caring. Professionals who listen to clients’ stories of fear, pain and suffering may feel similar fear, pain and suffering because they care. Simply the knowledge that a loved one has been exposed to a traumatic event can be traumatising – in this respect trauma can sometimes be contagious. The consequence of this process is that trauma therapy profoundly changes the therapist. These changes are both inspiring and disturbing, involving gains and losses. Traumatology literature usually excludes those who have been traumatised indirectly; thus this aspect is specifically explored in this article. Terminology like compassion fatigue, secondary traumatic stress, burnout, countertransference, and vicarious traumatisation, are explored. The importance of compassion satisfaction, a team approach and supervision is also highlighted. A list of typical characteristics of compassion fatigue is provided, as well as practical guidelines for dealing with and preventing this problem. Certain pastoral-theological perspectives concerning this theme are also discussed

Die impak van intergeneratiewe trauma. Verkennende perspektiewe tesame met enkele pastorale kantaantekeninge

The article focuses on the process of the transmission of trauma within succeeding generations. Typical behaviour and symptoms are highlighted. A summary of typical characteristics of a dysfunctional family is presented, followed by a literature study on the history of research on the theme of intergenerational trauma. Some parallels with a typical dysfunctional home are drawn. The focus then shifts to a pastoral model for counselling family members who suffer from the results of intergenerational trauma. This model is based mainly on four therapeutic models presented in the literature regarding the counselling of victims of intergenerational trauma and dysfunctional families.Acta Theologica Vol. 2 2007: pp. 1-2

Developing a protocol for collaborative decision-making in a smart manufacturing environment

Thesis (Doctor: Information Technology)--Central University of TechnologyThe Fourth Industrial Revolution places different rapidly advancing technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT), Internet of Services (IoS), Internet of Everything (IoE) and Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) at the centre of developing autonomous manufacturing systems. The development of these systems within the environment of Industry 4.0 expects significant changes in tasks and demands on the human in the manufacturing process and recognises that humans and machines are homogeneous parts of a larger diverse body consisting of collaborative and autonomous components. According to the Industry 4.0 concepts, all objects in the manufacturing world have assimilated processing and communication capabilities which highly affect machine-tomachine communication. However, a considerable consequence is that of the effect it will have on human-to-machine interaction. It is occasional that automated systems are solely autonomous; a level of human interaction is usually present although this challenge is not always considered. In mixed environments, automated systems and humans need to collaborate for the completion of a process. Currently, there exists very little research on how a collaborative decision-making process can be developed such that the worker’s acceptance and adaptation to the process is taken into cognizance. This research identifies the lack of collaborative decision-making processes as a research gap and introduces the problem with an extensive literature review that focuses on the research done in this field, followed by a review of potential models for human technology interaction. A case study of an automated water bottling plant to advance the study in collaborative decision-making is introduced for the execution of several experiments to compare a fully automated approach versus a collaboration between the human operator and the system. A single group experimental approach is used to prove the theory while also identifying where the human will best fit into the automated procedure resulting in an optimized production process. The hypothesis is that the completion time for customer orders will be optimal when the human and the machine collaborate for the completion of the production process

Retracing Revolutionary Footsteps: The Legacy of the People’s War in the Maoist Heartlands

In 1996, Nepal was engulfed in a civil war when the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) – hereafter referred to a— launched a guerilla war against the state. In historical and political scholarship on the conflict, there has been a tendency to situate the conflict with a neat set of causes and consequences. In focusing on the macroscale changes, such narrations of “Big History” obscure the experiences of the Nepali people who were—and continue to be— impacted by war with the loss and violence endured clinically tallied in human right reports and social science studies. Within rigid analyses, the variegated reasons individuals joined the Maoists have either been simplified as resulting from their backwardness or collapsed by Maoist leaders as resulting solely from ideological affinity. This project, then, seeks to collate an oral history of the “People’s War” by centering Nepali people’s experiences. — especially those at the epicenter of the conflict in the mid-western hills of Nepal— to illuminate the complexity, contradiction and diversity of experience encompassed under the banner of the “People’s War.

Evaluating a governmental training and development programme

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 78-83).The current study examines the Contractor Development Model (CDM) as used by Working for Water. The overarching goal of the WfW programme is to alleviate poverty by creating short to medium term jobs for unskilled workers through clearing alien vegetation. WfW aims to appoint contractors based on targets from the Expanded Public Works Programme which are 60% women, 20% youth (18 - 36 years) and 2% disabled people. The CDM’s main objectives can be seen as: the employment of youth, women and people with disabilities; skills development through training. The programme aims to to develop contractors so that they become less dependent on WfW. It aims to develop contractors’ alien clearing and business skills to such an extent that contractors eventually exit the CDM in order to pursue more lucrative opportunities outside of WfW

Managerial learning and management development in New Zealand SMEs

Objectives: Managerial capability in New Zealand SMEs has been perceived by policy makers as a factor that has constrained SME growth and development (MED, 2008). The New Zealand Centre for SME Research (NZSMERC) has undertaken a programme of research on managerial capability in New Zealand SMEs. This paper reports findings from the Centre’s 2009 annual survey of 1500 SMEs, the BusinesSMEasure. The survey builds on a previous qualitative study and is part of a programme of research which had the following objectives: (1) to understand how SME owner-managers assess their development needs and how they meet these needs; (2) to assess the extent of participation in management development; and (3) to assess the perceived impact of management development on their business. Prior Work: Previous literature and research evidence with SME owner managers suggests a low take up of formal managerial development programmes and a reliance on incidental and informal managerial learning processes (Massey et al, 2005). NZSMERC’s previous qualitative study with 25 SME owner-managers (Battisti, et al, 2009), enabled the development of a conceptual framework and typology to explain orientation to learning and management development. Further, it allowed the identification of variables that affected attitudes to managerial learning and participation in management development. The survey has enabled the testing of some of the propositions from the qualitative stage, such as the importance of sources of managerial learning and the importance of variables that influence owner manager participation in management development. Approach: The 2009 BusinesSMEasure survey involved 4,165 firms (including 694 firms who responded in the 2007 and 743 firms who responded in 2008 survey). There were 1447 usable responses after excluding 297 ineligible and unreachable firms, which gave an overall response rate of 35%, Building on the previous qualitative study and utilising the adapted theoretical framework, we have applied non-parametric analysis to examine the significance of SME profile characteristics affecting against typologies of learning and management development. Exploratory factor analysis has been undertaken on the range of variables affecting managerial learning and development to reveal clusters of variables driving managerial learning and development. Hypotheses generated by literature and theory have been tested and regression modelling completed. Results: Survey findings suggest incidental and informal managerial learning processes were predominant modes of owner-manager learning. These types of learning were associated with practice-based and proximal sources of learning, as opposed to more distal sources. Significant variables that affected the type and sources of SME managerial learning were gender, age, learning orientation and a belief of self improvement. There was a strong link between innovation and engagement in management development. Firms with at least one type of innovation activity reported to be more engaged in management development across all three types of learning i.e. incidental, informal and formal. Theoretical developments in the literature are used to provide the basis for testing hypotheses associated with learning orientation and belief in self improvement Implications: The research undertaken by the Centre was driven by a policy imperative: to investigate the causes of an underlying trend in New Zealand SMEs which suggested that there was a lack of managerial capability in SMEs and a failure of SMEs to engage with formal management development initiatives. Having revealed the drivers of managerial development and sources of learning we develop implications for supply side management development programmes and policy interventions

THE EFFECTS OF ANTHROPOMORPHISM AND AFFECTIVE DESIGN PRINCIPLES ON THE ADOPTION OF M-HEALTH APPLICATIONS

Published ThesisPrevious research has found that M-Health initiatives have not been adopted and used effectively in many cases, especially in rural communal locations. Based on this, the researcher has surmised that factors contributing to the non-use of such initiative could be the resulted of a lack of knowledge with regard to the use of technology, literacy challenges, possible fear of technology and a lack of information regarding interventions that have the potential to improve quality of life. Consequently, an initiative that has usability as its core function may play a critical role in the use and adoption of such technologies. The researcher wondered if and how anthropomorphic and affective design principles which aspire to extract an emotional or positively reinforced sub-conscious reaction from users may influence the adoption and use of M-Health initiatives when applied to said interventions. This study therefore set out to investigate the effects of anthropomorphism and affective design principles on the adoption of M-Health applications, with the Sethakeng rural community in the Northern Cape province of South Africa research population after consent was obtained from the relevant community leaders. The researcher wanted first to ascertain whether anthropomorphism and affective design could influence the adoption of Mobile-Health applications, then to identify which was the more effective method to design Mobile-Health applications and finally, to provide guidelines and recommendations about the most effective design theory, as identified in the study, when designing applications. This study predominantly employed a mixed approach research methodology which included action research cycles and quantitative data in the form of usage statistics, obtained from CloudWare, in the final report. A case study was conducted in a rural South African setting to explore and eventually understand the relation between the case community and the intervention. A qualitative research design best allowed the researcher to get a better understanding of the research problem identified and the obstacles facing the relevant rural community and quantitative data assisted with better understanding the relevant usage trends in terms of the M-Health intervention. The objectives of the case study were to observe the phenomenon and describe it with regards to the case community, document the reactions of the case community to different instances and variations of the phenomenon and, lastly, to report on the design principle that yielded the most positive reaction from the community from a usage perspective; thereby indicating the adoption of the design methodology employed. The research contributed towards the successful development, placement and scrutiny of two emotion-driven interfaces for the same M-Health intervention. A distinctive perspective was provided with regard to affective and anthropomorphic design to identify the better design model for improved application acceptance in a rural community context. At the conclusion of the study, evidence suggested that community members found the anthropomorphic interface design superior. The researcher was thus able to explore, identify, develop and list a set of guidelines that can be used in the area of emotional design. Each guideline was based on what worked in practice and was applied successfully throughout this study. The researcher would like these guidelines be implemented and utilised by other designers in the field of interaction design for future designers

The impact of preocupation with sexual activity, associated with the use of internet, on the family — a pastoral perspective

Together with the tremendous growth in the number of users of the internet in recent years, there was a corresponding growth in pornographic websites as well as internet sex. According to researchers and counsellors, more and more families and individuals get stuck in this trap, with destructive results for marriages and children. This article focuses on the magnitude of this problem, its progressive character as well as a number of possible causes. Typical behaviour of those addicted to this problem is evaluated as well as the impact of this addiction on sexual intimacy within the marriage. Pastoral guidelines that include a treatment program are discussed and practical hints are suggested. The article is concluded with a number of important websites of organisations that are providing, via the internet, a large quantity of literature and support services