Normative data for Frequency Patterns Test in assessment of Central Auditory Processing Disorders for South African children aged 8 to 11 years.

Background: A central auditory processing disorder (CAPD) is a disorder that presents in individuals as having difficulty understanding fast and degraded speech, understanding verbal instructions, and struggling to hear in background noise, these difficulties are not due to a peripheral hearing loss. Additional secondary effects of CAPD have been well documented to affect school aged children, therefore, making early diagnosis and intervention important for their development. The central tests currently used for testing in South Africa have materials and normative data that were developed from an American population of English first language speakers. In addition, many of the tests in the assessment battery have a high linguistic load. This raises a challenge in the South African population of first language English speakers and the majority of the population who are not first language English speakers. To reduce misdiagnosis, it is important to generate context-specific normative data from a South African test population. By developing normative data for the FPT in SA children it may assist in the accurate diagnosis of CAPD following assessment and contribute to the development of SA specific data. Aim 1: To develop context-specific normative data for the FPT in SA children aged 8- 11 years. Aim 2: To determine the relationship between existing American normative data and newly generated South African normative data. Methodology: A non-experimental comparative descriptive study design was conducted. There were 35 potential participants from 5 schools within the vicinity of the university. Results from 26 participants were included in the study analysis of the FPT and these results were developed into the normative data set. Results: The results from the 26 participants showed that results from the humming response were higher than the verbal response bilaterally. This was noted for all the age groups. In addition, the comparison for the generated normative data and the American data showed no significant difference between the two data sets in the description response. The comparison of the humming response revealed significantly higher responses in the generated normative data over the American data. This was seen across all the age groups. Conclusion: In addressing aim 1, the findings reveal that the FPT as an assessment is not affected by language however, the performance in the test may be affected by the language it is administered in. Additionally, the findings confirm a need for age specific data as the results improved with age showing the neuromaturation of the CANS as the children grow. Regarding aim 2, the results of this study show that there are some differences between the data sets from the two populations which is seen in other studies as well confirming the need for context specific normative data. The data set for this study was small and cannot be generalised to the whole S.A. population, therefore the data may be used as a first step in the development of a full set of normative data for the FPT. The study does inform the need for further research and a larger scale study for context specific data

Asymptotic Exponential Arbitrage and Utility-based Asymptotic Arbitrage in Markovian Models of Financial Markets

Consider a discrete-time infinite horizon financial market model in which the logarithm of the stock price is a time discretization of a stochastic differential equation. Under conditions different from those given in a previous paper of ours, we prove the existence of investment opportunities producing an exponentially growing profit with probability tending to $1$ geometrically fast. This is achieved using ergodic results on Markov chains and tools of large deviations theory. Furthermore, we discuss asymptotic arbitrage in the expected utility sense and its relationship to the first part of the paper.Comment: Forthcoming in Acta Applicandae Mathematica

The prevalence of plakophilin-2 gene (PKP-2) mutations in South African patient with cardiomyopathy

Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 53-58)

Utilization of small conduit hydropower generation for domestic loads

Thesis (Master of Engineering in Electrical Engineering) -- Central University of Technology, Free State, 2019The growth in the world’s population has led to an increased energy demand. Today and in the near future, renewable energy should be widely implemented, to meet the growing demand for energy. In all various renewable energy technologies, hydropower generation is the most established. A portion of small hydropower generation can be obtained by recovering the energy within water supply systems. Investing in water energy recovery is of utmost importance, considering the unsustainable use of water on the world level. Therefore, the process of energy recovery should be part of the water cycle. Many countries have begun with the development of this technology, although not much is exploited. The exploitation may contribute to the cost reduction of water supply systems, increasing feasibility. The current study focused on developing a simulation tool that may be used for conduit hydropower generation. This will assist the conduit hydropower developers to quantify the available energy and evaluate the viability of the conduit hydropower projects. The main findings revealed that the developed model responded effectively under variable pressure. The system was solely active when excess pressure was available. This was due to the pressure difference between PRV pre-set pressure and the system pressure. When the inlet pressure was greater than that of the pressure setting at PRV, the energy recovery turbine utilized the pressure drop to drive the PMSG. Various output voltages and currents were obtained; the generator did not generate when the pressure drop was zero. Further research is required to address the factors not covered by this work. This include: evaluation of various turbine and generator technology to validate the model as a universal conduit hydropower model, application of various configurations of the pipeline system and incorporating it to the simulation model and a thorough analysis of the physical losses in the pipeline, in order to accurately match the measured and simulated outputs

Development of an Adaptive Environmental Management System for Lejweleputswa District: A Participatory Approach through Fuzzy Cognitive Maps

Published ThesisEnvironmental pollution caused by mines within the district of Lejweleputswa in Free State is a major contributor to health issues and the inability to grow crops within the mining communities. Mining industries continue to develop environmental management systems/plans to mitigate the impact their operations has on the society. Even with these plans, there are still issues of environmental pollution affecting the society. Though there are Information Communication and Technology (ICT) based pollution monitoring solutions, their use is dismal due to lack of appreciation or understanding of how they disseminate information. Furthermore, non-adopting community members are being regarded as inherently conservative or irrational, but these community members argue that the recommendations and technologies brought to them are not always appropriate to their circumstances. There was concern that local people’s knowledge of their environment, farming systems, and their social as well as economic situation had been ignored and underestimated when ICTs solutions are being implemented (Warburton & Martin, 1999). Another challenge is that there is no station to monitor pollution for small communities such as Nyakallong in the district. This result in mining communities depending on their own local knowledge to observe and monitor mining related environmental pollution. However, this local knowledge has never been tested scientifically or analysed to recognize its usability or effectiveness. Mining companies tend to ignore this knowledge from the communities as it is treated like common information with no much scientific value. As a step towards verifying or validating this local knowledge, fuzzy cognitive maps were used to model, analyse and represent this linguistic local knowledge. Although this local knowledge assists in mitigating environmental pollution, incorporating it with scientific knowledge will improve its relevance, trustworthiness and acceptability by majority of community members and policy-makers. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can accelerate this integration; this is the focus of this research. The increased usages of Information Technology being witnessed today makes it the most important factor for the world to depend on for solutions to many of today’s and tomorrow’s problems. These solutions make use of various forms for dissemination purposes, one of the most versatile dissemination device is a mobile phone since majority of the world’s population do own a mobile phone. In this way information is easily accessible by almost everyone that needs it. A novel environmental management solution was designed to work within the mining communities of Lejweleputswa. The research started off by designing a unique integration framework that creates the much-needed link between local knowledge and scientific knowledge. The framework was then converted into an adaptable environmental pollution management system prototype made up of three components; (1) gathering environmental pollution knowledge; (2) environmental monitoring and; (3) environmental dissemination and communication. To achieve sustainability, relevance and acceptability, local knowledge was integrated in each of the three components while mobile phones were used as both input and output devices for the system. In order to facilitate collection and conservation of local knowledge on environmental monitoring, an elaborate android-based mobile application was developed. Wireless sensor-based gas sensor boards were acquired, and deployed as a compliment to conventional monitoring stations, they were used to gather scientific knowledge. To allow for public access to the system’s data, a web portal and an SMS-based component were also implemented. In order to collect local knowledge from community, a case study of Nyakallong community in Lejweleputswa was carried out. On completion of the system prototype, it was evaluated by participants from the community; 90% of respondents gave a score of ‘excellent ‘

Evaluation of fruit growth and development over a very extended harvesting period of 'Hass', ‘Fuerte’, ‘Gem’ and ‘Ryan’ avocado fruit.

Master of Science in Horticulture. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2017.Assessing avocado fruit growth and development by measuring fruit diameter during ontogeny may, therefore, offer clues to better understand whole plant behaviour. Plant sampling was carried out over different developmental stages from early to an extended growing season on four cultivars (‘Hass’, ‘Fuerte’, ‘Gem’ and ‘Ryan’). Mesocarp, exocarp and seed fruit tissues were used to determine internal parameters such as sugars, antioxidant, oil content, dry matter, and calcium). The sugars were extracted and analysed by isocratic HPLC. D-Mannoheptulose in mesocarp+exocarp tissues was found in significant amounts (‘Hass’ = 16.47±1.140 mg/g DM, ‘Fuerte’ = 11.92±1.780 mg/g DM, ‘Gem’ = 9.35±1.410 mg/g DM, ‘Ryan’ = 7.52±1.271 mg/g DM), with perseitol also being significant for all cultivar (‘Hass’ = 4.87±0.662 mg/g DM, ‘Fuerte’ = 5.77±0.650 mg/g DM, ‘Gem’ = 5.09±0.577 mg/g DM, ‘Ryan’ = 3.86±0.227 mg/g DM). D-Mannoheptulose was found in high levels in the mesocarp and exocarp compared to the seed. Perseitol was predominantly found in the seed for all cultivars (‘Hass’ = 7.31±0.486 mg/g DM, ‘Fuerte’ = 6.71±0.842 mg/g DM, ‘Gem’ = 6.76±0.224 mg/g DM, ‘Ryan’ = 8.62±0.473 mg/g DM). The C6 common sugars sucrose and glucose were detected in low concentrations in the mesocarp+exocarp fruit tissue, with sucrose being dominantly present in the seed. Calcium was determined by fruit ashing using HCl/HNO3 for digestion and strontium buffer solution for calcium extraction. Calcium concentration was significantly different during the ontogeny of each cultivar (‘Hass’ p = 0.007, ‘Fuerte’ p < .001, ‘Gem’ p < .001, and ‘Ryan’ p < .001). The calcium uptake peak is mostly reached during early fruit set stages of avocado fruit, followed by a decline and constant continuous low concentrations as approaching maturity. When fertilizer is applied during maturity calcium uptake in the avocado fruit tends to increase. Maturity indicators such as oil content, dry matter and fruit are significantly different across all fruit developmental stages. Oil content percentage (p < .001 all cultivars), dry matter (p < .001 all cultivars) and fruit size for both low and high tree fruit load (p < .001 all cultivars, except ‘Hass’ with p = 0.812 for high tree load fruits). During the extended hanging period maturity indices accumulation had a continually increased per cultivar, Oil% (‘Hass’ = 18.1%, ‘Fuerte’ = 12.74%, ‘Gem’ = 13.41%, and ‘Ryan’ = 17.41%), dry matter (‘Hass’ = 40.37 mg/g DM, ‘Fuerte’ = 24.01 mg/g DM, ‘Gem’ = 44.29 mg/g DM, and ‘Ryan’ = 35.39 mg/g DM), and size (‘Hass’ = 69.73mm, ‘Fuerte’ = 68.46mm, ‘Gem’ = 75.34mm, and ‘Ryan’ = 76.75mm), all significantly increased. Overall this study revealed that avocado fruit development does not necessarily end at the commercial harvesting period, but continues on fruits still attached to the tree after the single sigmoidal growth curve. When fruit harvesting is prolonged, the internal parameter for fruit growth, and C7 sugars, content contributes significantly throughout fruit ontogeny but varies in levels between cultivars. Calcium concentration uptake is in higher demands at early fruit set, where peak accumulation is reached almost at similar period with C7 sugars per cultivar. Therefore, C7 sugars and calcium in avocado are correlated during fruit growth and development. By extending fruit harvesting it allows the avocado fruit to mature by accumulating higher concentrations of sugars and, calcium immature harvest which result in negative market outcomes. This is especially true for late maturing cultivars which are less susceptible to poor postharvest quality. Therefore, avocado fruit development does not only follow a single sigmoidal growth curve but a double sigmoidal one

Assessing the innovation capability of South African SMEs in pursuing export opportunities

Innovation is broadly perceived as an important competitive enabler for any business that needs to survive, stay ahead and prosper. In turbulently and unpredictable global environments, the capability of the organisation to continuously innovate is a key contributor to sustained competitiveness. Innovation capability focuses on making certain that the organisation possess appropriate strategies, structures, culture, leadership techniques and resourcing strategies to bolster effective execution of innovation activities. Innovation can only occur if the organisation has developed innovation capabilities. A number of South African SMEs continue to be reluctant to innovate and trade beyond the borders of their inherent country due to the risks which this involves. SMEs with sound innovation capabilities can make a significant contribution to a nation's competitiveness. Therefore investment in understanding an organisations innovation capabilities and the factors that contribute to successful innovation is necessary. This study assessed the innovation capabilities of South Africa SMEs and their ability to pursue export opportunities. The intention was to gain understanding on how innovation can be used by South African SMEs to improve exports opportunities. The findings revealed that only two thirds of the South African SMEs possess innovative capabilities. The observation was made that some SMEs believe that they are innovative even though they do not have innovative capabilities. Factors that contribute to improved export includes the ability to negotiate export transaction with international partners, the ability to adapt to changing export markets and the ability to meet export demands. These findings present an opportunity for SMEs to continuously assess their innovation capabilities and put measures in place to improve their innovation output and frequency. Globalisation threatens the former safe markets for local businesses, therefore for SMEs to be sustainable, grow and be competitive they should focus on creating innovative products that are marketable globally and continuously seek new markets