Investigating the existence of common and agreed design and construction process among consulting professionals

Thesis is submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of Master of Science in Building (Project Management in Construction) to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, School of Construction Economics and Management at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2017The prevalence and persistence of problems of late project delivery, cost overruns, poor quality and many others, coupled with the lack of concrete solutions to eliminate the causes of these problems over many years have driven construction industries around the world to reconsider their design and construction processes that are used to deliver projects. A government led study in the UK recommended re-thinking the design and construction process; learning from the manufacturing industry. The process protocol was developed as a result, in order to bring about a common and agreed project delivery process. Other construction industries around the world have considered adopting similar models, believing change intended to introduce process-thinking for consistency and standardisation is required to improve project delivery. In South Africa, the existence of a common and agreed project delivery process is not clear. This study has endeavoured to explore the current phenomenon among professional councils and bodies on the existence of a common and agreed design and construction process. The research is a general opinion survey without the need for a statistical analysis. Therefore, utilising the qualitative research method was deemed to be most appropriate at this high level stage. From the research findings, it has been concluded that while there are six stages recognised by all professional councils and associations, these stages are not used as a project delivery process. The six stages are only applied to the measurement of the professional fees due at a given stage though not applied the same way by all professional disciplines. The underlying details in the stages overlap between disciplines in some instances and are inconsistent as well. The general consensus, from the research participants, is that a more defined and agreed process is required. The government has already taken the lead with the initiative of developing the Infrastructure Delivery Management System (IDMS) for public infrastructure projects. There is unanimous agreement among the research participants that the IDMS would be appropriate to be applied throughout the industry as a starting point for process standardisation.XL201

Enlarged arguments in Bantu : evidence from Chichewa

This paper re-examines two types of constructions that have featured in the discussion of possessor ascension in Bantu: one type – an applicative construction – is associated with alienable possession, and the other – non-applicative – is associated with inalienable possession. The study shows that the former expresses affectedness, and that the possessor reading arises only by construal; whereas the latter expresses a part–whole relationship. The paper argues that the two constructions differ in more significant ways than has previously been acknowledged; and that their distinct derivations cannot be captured by traditional possessor ascension (PA) analyses. The putative “alienable” possessor constructions belong to the class of (benefactive) applicative constructions and should be analyzed as such. The paper proposes that the so-called “inalienable” possessor constructions can best be accounted for by positing the existence of “enlarged arguments” wherein the possessum functions as a nominal predicate which more narrowly pinpoints the locus of the action described by the verb

Lactic acid fermentation of sour porridge and mahewu, a non-alcoholic fermented cereal beverage

A research paper on lactic acid fermentation of nutritious cereals found in Zimbabwe.The microbiological and acidic changes during the natural fermentation of mahewu, a non-alcoholic cereal beverage, and sour porridge were investigated. The presence of pathogenic yeasts in both products was also investigated. The study was carried out over a period of six months in the year 2000. The pH and total acidity as well as microbiological analysis were carried out at intervals of time during the fermentation period. There was a sharp decrease in pH in the mahewu and sour porridge broths in the first 12 to 24 hours of fermentation. Very little titratable acids were produced in the first 6 to 12 hours which was followed by a steady increase during the rest of the fermentation period. Enteric bacteria increased slightly in the first 12 hours but decreased sharply afterwards and could not be detected when the pH was around 3.5 whereas lactic acid bacteria predominated during the fermentation period. Yeasts increased in numbers as the pH dropped and were detected in lower numbers than lactic acid bacteria throughout the fermentation period. The yeasts isolated in both mahewu and sour porridge broths were Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Candida species which included the pathogenic species, C.glabrata, C.kefyr, and Zygosaccharomyces species. The other pathogenic Candida species isolated in sour porridge broth only were C.inconspicua and C.guilliermondii. Klebsiella pneumoniae, Enterobacter species, Escherichia coli and Serratia ficaria were the enteric bacteria isolated in mahewu broth whereas Klebsiella and Enterobacter species were the enteric bacteria isolated in sour porridge. The lactic acid bacteria isolated in mahewu broth were Lactobacillus species, Pediococcus pentosaceus, Lactococcus lactis and Leuconostoc lactis whereas Lactobacillus coprophilus and Leuconostoc lactis were isolated in sour porridge broth

The evolution, structure and market for birding tourism in South Africa.

The aim of this study was to define the structure, size and evolution and growth of one of the contributing markets to recent tourism growth in South Africa, bird watching tourism. Regarded as one of the fastest growing niche ecotourism markets both internationally and in South Africa, this report traces the growth patterns and outlines the organisation and structure of the sub-sector in South Africa. The report also provides an estimate of the market’s potential contribution to the tourism economy in South Africa. The findings presented in this report are based on original interviews with 12 individuals in the birding, conservation and government sector. A wide variety of documentary sources including the 2009 Kaiser Associates report on Bird watching in South Africa and the recently published report on the South African birding watching tourism industry report by the Department of Trade and Industry have also informed the findings and content of this report. Again, findings on the demand and supply elements of birding in South Africa were analysed from 68 individually collected and an online based survey conducted amongst birders and specialised birding tour operators. Amongst the major findings of the study is the fact the growth of birding tourism in South Africa is largely run by BirdLife South Africa through its 80 year old nationwide network of more than 50 community clubs or branches which mobilise and induct new birders and volunteers into bird watching. Most critical about the bird clubs are the several day, weekend and bird monitoring events and outings that are organised by the each of the clubs. It has been shown that local birders attend approximately 31 birding events and outings and spend R1415 per annum per trip excluding spend on, birding services and equipment per annum. There are between 13000 to 24000 bird watchers in South Africa and that between 8000 and 16000 international birders visit South Africa per annum (the dti, 2010). Based on these numbers, this study has shown that birding tourism industry contributes between R 809 million to R 1.668 billion per annum to South Africa’s Gross Domestic Product

Cryptosporidiosis In Harare, Zimbabwe

A CAJM medical article.Objective: To determine the prevalence of Cryptosporidiumparvum in diarrhoeal patients. Design: This was a laboratory-based cross sectional study on cryptosporidiosis in diarrhoeal patients. Setting: Department of Medical Laboratory Sciences, College of Health Sciences in Harare, Zimbabwe. Subjects: People of all ages with diarrhoea presenting at primary level health centres in Harare. Main Outcome Measures: Patient’s age, laboratory results. Results: Cryptosporidium parvum was the commonest enteric pathogen and was detected in 5.8% of the 500 diarrhoeal patients of all ages followed by Shigella species (3.8%) and Salmonella species (2.0%). The highest detection rate of C.parvum oocysts was observed in children less than five years old (11.2%) followed by children between six and 10 years old (6.3%) and then the 31 to 40 year age group (5.9%). Conclusions: Cryptosporidiosis affects people of all ages in Harare but is more common in children, particularly those under five years. The Cparvum oocysts should be looked for routinely in diarrhoeal stool specimens particularly those from children less than five years since C.parvum may be one of the causative agents of diarrhoea in this age group

Comparing vowel hiatus resolution in ciNsenga and chiShona: An Optimality Theory analysis

This article seeks to contribute to typology by presenting a formal comparative analysis of repair strategies used to resolve vowel hiatus in ciNsenga and chiShona. In these two languages, hiatus resolution is sensitive to phonology and morphosyntax such that hiatus resolution strategies apply differently depending on the phonological and morphosyntactic context. Across the prefix + noun stem boundary and within the Inflectional Stem, V1 undergoes “resyllabification” (Myers 1987:222) in the form of glide formation, secondary articulation and elision. An interlinguistic difference occurs when V2 is MacroStem-initial: in ciNsenga, hiatus resolution is blocked but in chiShona spreading is triggered. We follow Mudzingwa (2010) in proposing that resyllabification in chiShona is blocked at the Prosodic Stem edge by an alignment constraint (ALIGNL-PSTEM) that requires the left edge of a Prosodic Stem to align with the left edge of an onset-full syllable. We argue that resyllabification and glide epenthesis in ciNsenga are blocked when V2 is MacroStem-initial because ALIGN (ROOTVERB, L,σ,L) outranks ONSET and ALIGNL-PSTEM. Crucially, this article demonstrates that whilst vowel hiatus resolution is categorical in chiShona, it is domain-specific in ciNsenga.Keywords: CiNsenga, ChiShona, hiatus resolution, Optimality Theory, resyllabificatio

Using critical pedagogy in English education: Disjunctures between pre-service teachers’ preparation and opportunities for implementation

English education in South Africa has a long-standing relationship with Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy theory. In many universities offering qualifications in education, critical pedagogy features prominently in curricula for pre-service teachers of English. These teacher students are prepared with the knowledge and skills that critical pedagogy offers to be able to teach English effectively in their classrooms upon graduation. Yet, there are multiple constraints in the school system that impede the implementation of critical pedagogy in the English classroom. These constraints range from employment shortage to lack of incentives for teachers. As a result, it becomes evident that there is a disparity between teacher preparation to teach English in critical ways and teacher opportunity to actually do so. In this article, we explore this disparity between teacher preparation and opportunity to apply critical pedagogy in the English classroom, and on the basis of that we conceptualise learning to teach as a blend of adaptive and adoptive teaching in the real-world context

Bacterial contamination of food and household stored drinking water in a farmworker community in Zimbabwe

A clinical study on bacterial contamination of household stored food and water in a plantation community in Zimbabwe.Diarrhoeal disease is one of the major problems affecting young children in the tropics. Standards of personal hygiene and public sanitation are low in many communities in developing countries and contamination of foods and drinking water with pathogenic micro-organisms may be an important source of infectious diarrhoea. Not much work has been conducted on the role of contaminated foods and household stored drinking water in the transmission of childhood diarrhoea in developing countries. In a study which was carried out in Gambia,1 it was observed that a very high proportion of food consumed by infants and young children was overgrown with bacteria to a hazardous degree

Payment in the Polity: Funded Community Writing Projects

In this collaborative essay Audrey Simango, Matthew Stadler, and Alison Turner--Reader/Advisor/Editors (RAEs) at The GOAT PoL--explore the subject of money. Most discussions about money have focused on debates over compensation of research subjects (Snow et al. 54), or connections between community writing and well-funded projects, such as the Federal Writers Project of the 1930s (Mutnick). After providing context for The GOAT PoL, we reflect on the way our small payments to participants shift our relationships. We ask: 1) How does the exchange of money on The GOAT PoL affect the RAE\u27s experience of reading, editing, and advising authors? 2) How do the challenges we encounter by paying authors make visible what we thought we knew about power and privilege across international writing projects?; and 3) Is it possible for the exchange of money--with its unpredictable impacts--to expand and deepen, rather than shrink and diminish, the polity of literature

Exploring the level of knowledge and attitudes of teenagers towards substance abuse in an informal settlement

Substance abuse is a pervasive problem across the world. The most commonly abused substanc-es include tobacco, alcohol and dagga. In teenagers, research has found out that substance abuse is often linked to multiple factors such as scholastic problems, mental and health problems, risky sexual behaviour, accidents, crime and violence. The present study aimed to explore the level of knowledge and attitudes of teenagers towards substance abuse in an informal settlement. The target population were teenage girls and boys between the ages of 13 and 19. A mixed method approach was employed in this study. A self-administered questionnaire was designed and used to collect data. This questionnaire contained both closed and open ended questions. The Statis-tical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyse the data. Findings show that teen-agers have adequate knowledge and appropriate attitudes towards substance abuse. However, the results also indicate that the provision of information on substance abuse remains important in shaping attitudes of young people. Interventions such as awareness campaigns, focus group discussions, education and developmental programmes that contribute to knowledge on the impact of and ways to control substance abuse are recommendedPsychologyM. A. (Psychology