Trade union social support and work stress: the experience of blue collar workers

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree ot Master of Arts in Industrial Social Work by course work, 1998This study explored the effects of perceived trade union social support on the work stress of blue collar workers. It was hypothesised that blue collar workers who obtain social support from their trade union would experience the least stress. This study is a comparative qualitative study. The sample involved 60 blue collar workers in a Telkom workshop. The role orientation questionnaire was used to test their stress levels and thereafter the trade union social support scale was used to test their levels of perceived trade union social support study revealed that blue collar workers are indeed exposed to stress, however, those that perceived the trade union as giving them social support, experienced the least stress. On the basis of the findings it is recommended that occupational social workers intervene on micro, meso and macro levels in order to help in alleviating the stress levels of blue collar workers.AC201

12 政治学の対象としての国家－政治権力論序説－ ＜神奈川大学創立三五周年記念論文集＞

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An efficient image retrieval scheme for colour enhancement of embedded and distributed surveillance images

From the past few years, the size of the data grows exponentially with respect to volume, velocity, and dimensionality due to wide spread use of embedded and distributed surveillance cameras for security reasons. In this paper, we have proposed an integrated approach for biometric-based image retrieval and processing which addresses the two issues. The first issue is related to the poor visibility of the images produced by the embedded and distributed surveillance cameras, and the second issue is concerned with the effective image retrieval based on the user query. This paper addresses the first issue by proposing an integrated image enhancement approach based on contrast enhancement and colour balancing methods. The contrast enhancement method is used to improve the contrast, while the colour balancing method helps to achieve a balanced colour. Importantly, in the colour balancing method, a new process for colour cast adjustment is introduced which relies on statistical calculation. It adjusts the colour cast and maintains the luminance of the image. The integrated image enhancement approach is applied to the enhancement of low quality images produced by surveillance cameras. The paper addresses the second issue relating to image retrieval by proposing a content-based image retrieval approach. The approach is based on the three features extraction methods namely colour, texture and shape. Colour histogram is used to extract the colour features of an image. Gabor filter is used to extract the texture features and the moment invariant is used to extract the shape features of an image. The use of these three algorithms ensures that the proposed image retrieval approach produces results which are highly relevant to the content of an image query, by taking into account the three distinct features of the image and the similarity metrics based on Euclidean measure. In order to retrieve the most relevant images, the proposed approach also employs a set of fuzzy heuristics to improve the quality of the results further. The result

A critical examination of the theology and praxis of the SACC, 1968-1988.

Masters Degree, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg.Abstract available in PDF