Why Select and Remain in my University: Re-examining Higher Education in South Africa

Tertiary institutions have a major role in providing relevant education that best meets the needs of the various constituencies served. To meet these needs an assessment of factors that influence their choices becomes imperative. As a result of the governments' policy to transform higher education in South Africa and the challenges brought about by globalisation and internationalisation, tertiary institutions are facing new challenges. Attracting quality students in a highly competitive education environment is crucial as the numbers of students' dropping out especially call attention to wastage in government funding. This paper examines some of the criteria used by South-African students, when choosing or evaluating a tertiary institution. The main findings include a significant positive link among trust in management, satisfaction with transport, perception of readiness for change and overall satisfaction with the university. These variables have indirect relationship with satisfaction with transport and living arrangement of students. Practical implications, limitations and suggestions for future studies were articulated

Measuring Service Quality in South Africa Higher Education: Developing a Multidimensional Scale

Increased competition in the educational environment has contributed to the growing importance of service quality measurement at higher education institutions. This paper investigates aspects of service quality in higher education as a step towards developing a standardised scale for its measurement. Using structured questionnaires, survey data was collected from students (n = 391) from two South African universities. Findings indicate that the service quality in higher education scale is a multidimensional construct loading on 13 factors with reasonable reliability coefficient and some construct validity. Significant relationships were found among a number of study variables. Some further research directions were suggested and policy implications discussed

HESS J1825-137: A pulsar wind nebula associated with PSR B1823-13?

HESS J1825-137 was detected with a significance of 8.1 $\sigma$ in the Galactic Plane survey conducted with the H.E.S.S. instrument in 2004. Both HESS J1825-137 and the X-ray pulsar wind nebula G18.0--0.7 (associated with the Vela-like pulsar PSR B1823-13) are offset south of the pulsar, which may be the result of the SNR expanding into an inhomogeneous medium. The TeV size ($\sim 35$ pc, for a distance of 4 kpc) is $\sim 6$ times larger than the X-ray size, which may be the result of propagation effects as a result of the longer lifetime of TeV emitting electrons, compared to the relatively short lifetime of keV synchrotron emitting electrons. The TeV photon spectral index of $\sim 2.4$ can also be related to the extended PWN X-ray synchrotron photon index of $\sim 2.3$, if this spectrum is dominated by synchrotron cooling. The anomalously large size of the pulsar wind nebula can be explained if the pulsar was born with a relatively large initial spindown power and braking index $n\sim 2$, provided that the SNR expanded into the hot ISM with relatively low density ($\sim 0.003$ cm$^{-3}$).Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, to appear in the Proc. of the 29th International Cosmic Ray Conference, OG Sessio

K^+ -> pi^+ nu nu-bar and K_L -> pi^0 nu nu-bar Decays in the General MSSM

We reanalyze the rare decays K^+ -> pi^+ nu nu-bar and K_L -> pi^0 nu nu-bar in a general MSSM with conserved R-parity. Working in the mass eigenstate basis and performing adaptive scanning of a large space of supersymmetric parameters, 16 parameters in the constrained scan and 63 in the extended scan, we find that large departures from the Standard Model expectations are possible while satisfying all existing constraints. Both branching ratios can be as large as a few times 10^{-10} with Br(K_L -> pi^0 nu nu-bar) often larger than Br(K^+ -> pi^+ nu nu-bar) and close to its model independent upper bound. We give examples of supersymmetric parameters for which large departures from the SM expectations can be found and emphasize that the present 90% C.L. experimental upper bound on Br(K^+ -> pi^+ nu nu-bar) gives a non trivial constraint on the MSSM parameter space. Unlike previous analyses, we find that chargino box diagrams can give, already for moderately light charged sleptons, a significant contribution. As a byproduct we find that the ranges for the angles beta and gamma in the unitarity triangle are relaxed due to the presence of new CP-violating phases in K^0 - K^0-bar and B^0_d - B^0_d-bar mixing to 12 degrees <= beta <= 27 degrees and 20 degrees <= gamma <= 110 degrees.Comment: 36 pages, 27 figures, latex, uses axodraw.st

Weak Quasi-elastic Production of Hyperons

The quasielastic weak production of $\Lambda$ and $\Sigma$ hyperons from nucleons and nuclei induced by antineutrinos is studied in the energy region of some ongoing neutrino oscillation experiments in the intermediate energy region. The hyperon nucleon transition form factors determined from neutrino nucleon scattering and an analysis of high precision data on semileptonic decays of neutron and hyperons using SU(3) symmetry have been used. The nuclear effects due to Fermi motion and final state interaction effects due to hyperon nucleon scattering have also been studied. The numerical results for differential and total cross sections have been presented.Comment: 26 pages, 10 figure

Eerste kwartaal 2011 melkvee: melkprijs en saldo boven langjarig gemiddelde

De gestegen melkprijs in het eerste kwartaal 2011 kan de hogere voerkosten ruim compenseren. Hierdoor ligt het saldo van de melkveebedrijven in het eerste kwartaal hoger dan in dezelfde periode van 2010

Development of Drum-Buffer-Rope scheduling software to support a “what if” approach to scheduling job shops

Thesis (MScEng (Industrial Engineering))--University of Stellenbosch, 2006.The Theory of Constraints is a management philosophy based on the underlying assumption that only a few constraining factors limit the throughput of the entire system. Drum-Buffer-Rope is the production logistical solution of the Theory of Constraints. It is the implementation of Constraints Management on the manufacturing shop floor, to manage physical resource constraints. Drum-Buffer-Rope was designed with the purpose of increasing Throughput, while simultaneously decreasing Inventory, and minimising Operating Expense. It aims to accomplish these goals by focusing on simplifying and therefore reducing variability in the production process, and ultimately protecting order due dates against disruptions. The dynamic conditions under which typical job shops operate can make Constraints Management of the resource constraints a cumbersome task. By following a “What If” approach to the scheduling process, the scheduler can play an interactive role in developing practical shop floor schedules. In this way the scheduler can see the results of his/her ideas on the shop floor situation quickly as immediate feedback is provided. The Drum-Buffer-Rope methodology only finite schedules certain points in the manufacturing process therefore scheduling calculations can be performed quickly if done in software. This makes it possible for the scheduler to analyse various scenarios in a short period of time and allowing the development of near optimal shop floor schedules by following a “What If” approach to scheduling. In this project, new developments in the field of Drum-Buffer-Rope were investigated, and the newly developed Simplified Drum-Buffer-Rope methodology was researched. The methodologies were incorporated in a fully developed software package that uses Drum-Buffer- Rope or Simplified Drum-Buffer-Rope to marry the intrinsic knowledge of the shop-floor worker with modern day computer technology to create production schedules that can be released to the shop floor. Schedules are created rapidly enough by the software to enable the scheduler to follow a “What If” approach to create near optimal shop floor schedules. The developed software was used with live data from a South African job shop to illustrate the “What If” approach to Simplified Drum-Buffer-Rope scheduling. The results show that throughput can be increased and operating expense decreased, therefore increasing bottom line results, by analysing various scenarios

A Model of the Spectral Evolution of Pulsar Wind Nebulae

Recent observations suggest that many old pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe) are bright TeV gamma-ray sources without a strong X-ray counterpart. In this paper, we study the spectral evolution of PWNe taking into account the energy which was injected when they were young for old PWNe. We model the evolution of the magnetic field and solve for the particle distribution inside a uniformly expanding PWN. The model is calibrated by fitting the calculated spectrum to the observations of the Crab Nebula at an age of a thousand years. We find that only a small fraction of the injected energy from the Crab Pulsar goes to the magnetic field, consistent with previous studies. The spectral evolution model of the Crab Nebula shows that the flux ratio of TeV gamma-rays to X-rays increases with time, which implies that old PWNe are faint at X-rays, but not at TeV gamma-rays. The increase of this ratio is primarily because the magnetic field decreases with time and is not because the X-ray emitting particles are cooled more rapidly than the TeV gamma-ray emitting particles. Our spectral evolution model matches the observed rate of the radio flux decrease of the Crab Nebula.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures. Proc. of the 2009 Fermi Symposium, Washington, DC, Nov 2-5; eConf Proceedings C09112