Acceptance of co-operative education practice by the academic staff at Technikon Southern Africa.

Technikons advocate the practice of co-operative education, which is an educational strategy that integrates learning through productive work with the theoretical curriculum. However, only 35% of theTechnikon SA programmes have a compulsory experiential learning component. Grounded theory research was undertaken to determine some of the basic assumptions of Technikon SA’s academic staff in this regard. Rather than starting out with a specific research problem, grounded theory explores an area of interest and allows what is relevant to emerge. Semi-structured interviews with four open-ended questions, were conducted with a stratified-random sample of 25 teaching staff at Technikon SA. It was found that, although there is some willing compliance and belief in co-operative education, it is not indicative of the organisational culture of Technikon SA

Strategic Marketing Insights For Small Business Meat Retailers

Branded meat of consistently high quality has earned a reputation worldwide as a means to increase beef consumption. The feedlot industry is the main beef producer in South Africa and falls in the category of ‘Small Businesses.’ For these small business meat retailers to be successful in an industry subjected to fierce competition, it is necessary to be innovative in a market where high quality beef serves as just another commodity. This study explored the marketing efforts of meat producers in Middelburg, Mpumalanga, by drawing tangent planes between effective marketing and the knowledgeable consumer. The research approach that was used included both quantitative and qualitative research. The population consisted of consumers buying meat products at three different retailers in Middelburg, Mpumalanga. A sample of 612 was conveniently selected for the study. A total of 588 questionnaires were completed. The results of the study provide insights into the measures that influence brand equity for branded meat products. The importance to establish a link between brand variables and consumers’ perception regarding the importance of these variables is thus critical in the success of branded meat products. These marketing insights make a significant contribution to the competitive marketing strategies of small business meat retailers

Design and analysis of adaptively modulated optical orthogonal frequency division multiple access multiband passive optical networks

The aim of this thesis is to explore innovative technical solutions of utilising Optical Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OOFDM) in intensity modulation and direct detection (IMDD) based future access networks to provide multi-service capability with a minimum 1 Gb/s per user. This thesis extensively investigates and analyses the feasibility and performance of adaptively modulated optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing multiple access passive optical networks (AMOOFDMA PONs) upstream transmission systems by numerically simulating AMOOFDMA PONs using experimentally determined parameters. OOFDM transceivers incorporating reflective semiconductor optical amplifiers (RSOAs) and distributed feedback (DFB) lasers are utilised in the transceivers and intensity modulation and direct detection (IMDD) transmission systems are also employed to achieve a low complexity, high speed and large bandwidth PON as a solution for next generation access networks. Numerical simulations has also being undertaken to improve overall AMOOFDMA PON performance and power budget by incorporating optical band-pass filters (OBPFs) at the output of optical network units (ONUs). A major challenge of making PONs spectrally efficient has been addressed in this thesis by investigating the AMOOFDMA PON with ONUs on a single upstream wavelength. The performance of the single upstream wavelength AMOOFDMA PON is compared to the multiple wavelength AMOOFDMA PON. Another major challenge in AMOOFDMA PONs namely improving system capacity has also been addressed by implementing multiband transmission in an AMOOFDMA PON. Results show that for a multiple upstream OOFDMA IMDD PON system over 25 km single mode fibre (SMF) can achieve an aggregated data rate of 11.25 Gb/s and the minimum wavelength spacing between ONUs are independent of the number of ONUs. Results also show that a single upstream wavelength AMOOFDMA IMDD PON with multiband incorporated at the ONUs can achieve a aggregated line rate of 21.25 Gb/s over 25 km SMF

Tracking mortality in near to real time provides essential information about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa in 2020

Background. Producing timely and accurate estimates of the impact of COVID-19 on mortality is challenging for most countries, but impossible for South Africa (SA) from cause-of-death statistics. Objectives. To quantify the excess deaths and likely magnitude of COVID-19 in SA in 2020 and draw conclusions on monitoring the epidemic in 2021. Methods. Basic details of deaths registered on the National Population Register by the Department of Home Affairs (DoHA) are provided to the South African Medical Research Council weekly. Adjustments are made to the numbers of weekly deaths to account for non-registration on the population register, as well as late registration of death with the DoHA. The weekly number of deaths is compared with the number predicted based on the Holt-Winters time-series analysis of past deaths for provinces and metropolitan areas. Excess deaths were calculated for all-causes deaths and natural deaths, using the predicted deaths as a baseline. In addition, an adjustment was made to the baseline for natural deaths to account for the drop in natural deaths due to lockdown. Results. We estimated that just over 550 000 deaths occurred among persons aged ≥1 year during 2020, 13% higher than the 485 000 predicted before the pandemic. A pronounced increase in weekly deaths from natural causes peaked in the middle of July across all ages except <20 years, and across all provinces with slightly different timing. During December, it became clear that SA was experiencing a second wave of COVID-19 that would exceed the death toll of the first wave. In 2020, there were 70 000 - 76 000 excess deaths from natural causes, depending on the base. Using the adjusted base, the excess death rate from natural causes was 122 per 100 000 population, with a male-to-female ratio of 0.78. Deaths from unnatural causes halved for both males and females during the stringent lockdown level 5. The numbers reverted towards the predicted number with some fluctuations as lockdown restrictions varied. Just under 5 000 unnatural deaths were averted. Conclusions. Tracking the weekly numbers of deaths in near to real time has provided important information about the spatiotemporal impact of the pandemic and highlights that the ~28 000 reported COVID-19 deaths during 2020 substantially understate the death toll from COVID-19. There is an urgent need to re-engineer the system of collecting and processing cause-of-death information so that it can be accessed in a timely way to inform public health actions

Acceptance of co-operatve education practice by the Academic Staff at Technikon South Africa

Technikons advocate the practice of co-operative education, which is an educational strategy that integrates learning through productive work with the theoretical curriculum. However, only 35% of theTechnikon SA programmes have a compulsory experiential learning component. Grounded theory research was undertaken to determine some of the basic assumptions of Technikon SA’s academic staff in this regard. Rather than starting out with a specific research problem, grounded theory explores an area of interest and allows what is relevant to emerge. Semi-structured interviews with four open-ended questions, were conducted with a stratified-random sample of 25 teaching staff at Technikon SA. It was found that, although there is some willing compliance and belief in co-operative education, it is not indicative of the organisational culture of Technikon SA. Opsomming Technikons propageer die beoefening van ko˛peratiewe onderwys,’n opvoedkundige strategiewat leer deur produktiewewerkservaring integreermet die teoretiese kurrikulum. ByTechnikon SAegter, het slegs sowat 35% van die formele programme ’n verpligte leerervarings komponent.Teoretiese-begrondings navorsingsmetodologie is gebruik omsekere basiese veronderstellings van akademiese personeel te bepaal. Eerder as om’n spesifieke navorsingsprobleemas vertrekpunt te gebruik, ondersoek teoretiese-begronding’n areavan belang en laat die metodiek die relevante sake toe omte voorskyn te kom. Semi-gestruktureerde onderhoude,met vier ope vrae, is gevoer met ’n gestratifiseerde eweskansige steekproef van 25 akademiese personeellede vanTechnikon SA. Daar is bevind dat alhoewel daar beperkte oortuiging en gewillige uitlewing van kooperatiewe onderwys is, is dit nie beduidend as kenmerkend van die organisasie kultuur vanTechnikon SA nie