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Bhaskar and collective action: Using laminations to structure a literature review of collective action and water management

  • Authors: Burt, Jane C
  • Date: 2015
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , book chapter
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/436978 , vital:73321 , ISBN 9781315660899 , https://www.routledge.com/Critical-Realism-Environmental-Learning-and-Social-Ecological-Change/Price-Lotz-Sistka/p/book/9780367597689
  • Description: This chapter describes the use of Bhaskar’s lamination to make sense of the vast literature on collective action. The liter-ature review in the chapter was part of a broader study that in-vestigated collective action as essential for attaining the princi-ples of equity and sustainability set out in the post-apartheid South African Water Act. A laminated analysis of the literature revealed important insights such as: when dealing with collec-tive action we need to appreciate that all the levels of reality are acting simultaneously on a given context and cannot be resolved in isolation; collective action is inhibited or con-strained at different levels and scales by different things; and collective action is not suspended in a fixed context and can-not be encouraged by following a set formula. These insights point to the importance of learning to adapt as a core principle of collective action. Drawing on this research and experience of how collective action can be supported or inhibited gives insight into understanding our current limitations in supporting collective action and in understanding the kinds of collective action encounters that are occurring in catchments in South Africa. These understandings have implications for how we consider learning, and the potential contributions of learning-led change.This chapter describes the use of Bhaskar’s lamination to make sense of the vast literature on collective action. The liter-ature review in the chapter was part of a broader study that in-vestigated collective action as essential for attaining the princi-ples of equity and sustainability set out in the post-apartheid South African Water Act. A laminated analysis of the literature revealed important insights such as: when dealing with collec-tive action we need to appreciate that all the levels of reality are acting simultaneously on a given context and cannot be resolved in isolation; collective action is inhibited or con-strained at different levels and scales by different things; and collective action is not suspended in a fixed context and can-not be encouraged by following a set formula. These insights point to the importance of learning to adapt as a core principle of collective action. Drawing on this research and experience of how collective action can be supported or inhibited gives insight into understanding our current limitations in supporting collective action and in understanding the kinds of collective action encounters that are occurring in catchments in South Africa. These understandings have implications for how we consider learning, and the potential contributions of learning-led change.
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  • Date Issued: 2015

Bilingual teaching practices in South African higher education : making a case for terminology planning

  • Authors: Mawonga, Sisonke
  • Date: 2015
  • Subjects: Language and education -- South Africa , Native language and education , Language policy -- South Africa
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
  • Identifier: vital:3653 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1017894
  • Description: When the apartheid government was in power universities in South Africa were segregated according to a race and language. After apartheid, the democratic government came into power and its vision was abolition of segregation. There was also equal and equity of access to public institutions which were set aside for certain people to have access to. Access to universities was equalized and students with different racial, social, cultural and linguistic backgrounds were allowed access to universities which they used not to have access to before. The students‟ access to all universities led to diversity within these institutions. Even though this was the case, there were no changes in the system prevalent during apartheid. English, for example, continued to be the language of learning and teaching (LoLT) while the numbers of students who speak languages other than English (LOTE) as home languages was also increasing. The Constitution of South Africa (Section 6, Act 108 of 1996) acknowledges the previous marginalization of indigenous languages in the country and encourages the development and use of these languages as official languages. The right of access to educational institutions, and accessing education in one‟s language, if that language is one of the official languages, is also encouraged by the Constitution. There are other supporting legislative documents such as the Languages Bill (2011), the Higher Education Act (1997) and the national Language Policy for Higher Education (LPHE) (2002) that support multilingualism, the equal promotion of the official languages as well as use of multiple languages in higher education institutions (HEIs) to support learning. The above mentioned policies and legislations may exist to ensure equality and equity, and even though HEIs have become heterogonous, that does not guarantee that the students enrolled in these institutions have equal access to knowledge offered by the HEIs in SA. This research uses the theories of languages and conceptualization; language and learning as well as language planning to show that the students‟ first languages in learning can assist to facilitate cognition. Terminology development, as part of corpus planning which is the body of language planning is introduced in this study in the form of bilingual glossaries as an intervention especially for students‟ whose mother tongue is not English as language used for learning at university for different disciplines tend to be abstract. The data for this research was collected from the 2014 first year students registered in the Extended Studies Unit (ESU) in the Humanities Faculty at Rhodes University. Research methods such as questionnaires, participant observations, interviews as well as content analysis were used to collect the data. These methods were used to look at the students‟ use and perceptions of bilingual glossaries as additional resource materials which can assist them in learning. A Political Philosophy I module offered by the Political Science department was used for this research. This thesis presents a model which can be used for the development of bilingual glossaries in order to facilitate learning. The thesis recommends the use of corpus extraction tools such as WordSmith Tools (WST) that can be used to generate and extract terms and illustrates the use of this tool by extracting terms from an English Political Philosophy textbook. These terms are defined and these are then translated into isiXhosa to provide a sample of the bilingual glossary. This glossary has been designed to illustrate how the bi/multilingual glossaries with terms and definitions can be developed in order for use by students to facilitate learning them. The study also presents a terminology list which consists of Political Philosophy terms that have been generated during the corpus extraction process. It is recommended that further research looks into the development of bi/multilingual glossaries using the suggested model so that the students who are speakers of LOTE can also be able to understand abstract terms which are used at university
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  • Date Issued: 2015

Biodiversity and nutrition

Biomass potential and nutrient export of mature pinus radiata in the southern Cape region of South Africa

  • Authors: Van Zyl, Salmon Johannes
  • Date: 2015
  • Subjects: Pinus radiata -- South Africa , Forest biomass -- South Africa
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Masters , MTech
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/4321 , vital:20584
  • Description: South Africa lags behind the rest of the world with regard to the availability of allometric biomass information. There is a complete lack of site specific allometric data for Pinus radiata in the southern Cape region, impeding investment in the renewable energy sector. This shortcoming was addressed by developing up-scalable, single tree biomass models. These models quantify the aboveground biomass of rotation age P. radiata grown in the southern Cape across a range of site conditions. The models use diameter at breast height (DBH) to predict the aboveground component biomass. A nutrient loss risk potential was assigned to each biomass component. Nineteen trees were destructively harvested using a full fresh weight sampling approach. Basic density was determined using a water displacement method, while Newton’s volume equation was used for stemwood volume determination. Log linear models were simultaneously regressed through seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) using the “Systemfit” R statistical package to force component additivity. A categorical variable was applied to the models, grouping the data into two Site Index (SI) based categories, namely “Low” SI and “Medium to High” SI, to account for inter-site variability. The corrected Akaike Information Criteria (AICc) and coefficient of determination (R2) was used to determine the goodness of fit of the models. The McElroy R2 for the SUR system was 0.95. Biomass models were developed that are able to predict various tree component masses at high levels of certainty within site and stand attribute ranges similar to this study. The importance of accurate, site specific wood basic density was demonstrated by its substantial weighting on stem and hence total biomass. Results showed that the stemwood mean basic density range was between 503 kg m-3 and 517 kg m-3 for the “Low” SI sites and 458 kg m-3 for the “Medium to High” SI sites. Site quality can have a major impact on the models, particularly on poorer sites where stemwood production is proportionally less than other tree components. Total aboveground biomass was estimated to range between 58.61 odt ha-1 and 70.85 odt ha-1 for “Low” SI sites, and 185.31 odt ha-1 to 266.58 odt ha-1 for “Medium to High” SI sites. Stemwood biomass accounted for 65% of the total aboveground biomass for “Low” SI sites and 70% for “Medium to High” SI sites.
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  • Date Issued: 2015

Biotechnology from bench to market: the design, scale-up and commercialisation strategy development of a disruptive bioprocess for potable ethanol production

  • Authors: Dhanani, Karim Colin Hassan
  • Date: 2015
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MSc
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/55863 , vital:26750
  • Description: The capacity of research institutions to engage in technology transfer activities has important implications on both economic development and technological advancement. This thesis explores the developmental and commercialisation processes involved in the transfer of a potentially disruptive bioprocessing technology for beverage alcohol production. Ethanolic fermentation strategies are of interest due to their global economic importance and their potential to produce clean renewable fuels in the future. Currently used methods are both energetically wasteful and economically inefficient. To this end more effective bioprocessing methods and implementation strategies are required to enable commercially viable decentralised small-scale ethanol production. Perfusion reactors have a number of advantages over batch and other continuous fermentation strategies. This study aimed to develop and study the fermentative efficiency of a perfusion tower bioreactor system at the bench scale, and subsequently through a scale up process to a low level commercial capacity. An HPLC method was developed for the Simultaneous quantification of common fermentation analytes; this was used to determine bench scale fermentation efficacies over an operational period. At steady state the ethanol volumetric productivity of the bench scale bioreactor system was 3.40 g. L-1.h-1, the average yield of ethanol to consumed sugar was 0.467 g.g -1, with an average sugar conversion percentage of 96%. Results showed that the tower perfusion bioreactor was appropriate for high performance ethyl alcohol fermentations. This reactor design was then scaled up to pilot scale and then commercial scale ca pacity. Similar efficienCies were achieved with these larger systems. Based on the process performance data obtained, a commercialisation strategy was developed and market performance was projected. It was found that productivity rates per unit volume were favourable, and the bioreactor system was determined to be very cost effective for a decentralised ethanolic beverage manufacturing model.
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  • Date Issued: 2015

Bitten

  • Authors: Sullivan, Louella
  • Date: 2015
  • Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) , South African poetry (English) -- Study and teaching (Higher) , South African poerty (English) -- 21st century
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
  • Identifier: vital:5994 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1017778
  • Description: My poetry investigates the extraordinary in the everyday, exploring my life as a mother and wife, to find the quiet truths that lie there. Using fresh ways of describing familiar experiences, the poems describe tiny, almost-missed moments and voices that have shaped me. Throughout the collection, I imagine my younger selves commenting on my current self and vice versa. Ultimately, my poems use simple words and clean lines to evoke how I feel (and how I want the reader to feel) in each of the moments they describe.
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  • Date Issued: 2015

Black-boxing and the politics of parliamentary oversight in South Africa

  • Authors: Siebörger, Ian , Adendorf, Ralph D
  • Date: 2015
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , book chapter
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/433497 , vital:72976 , ISBN 978-9027206565 , https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.65
  • Description: We investigate a parliamentary committee meeting overseeing a randomly chosen state-owned entity, in order to track the processes of knowledge production that occur in parliamentary oversight. The entity’s representatives use “epistemological condensation” (Maton 2014:130) to present the information they give to the MPs as incontestable, effectively “black-boxing” it. “Black-boxing” (Latour 1987) is a process which presents knowledge in such a way that very little room is left for questioning it. The committee members also use “epistemological rarefaction” (Maton 2014:130) to open the black box of the presentation and question its contents, challenging the practices of the entity.
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  • Date Issued: 2015

Blind spots: trickery and the'opaque stickiness' of seeing

  • Authors: Simbao, Ruth K
  • Date: 2015
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/147303 , vital:38624 , https://0-hdl.handle.net.wam.seals.ac.za/10520/EJC176319
  • Description: In a flash the spot will disappear, and in its place - and this is the interesting thing - there is nothing. According to experimental psychology, the eye does not fill in the blind spot, but tricks us into thinking that it has been filled. The blind spot is pure absence of vision, and cannot be experienced at all. The blind spot is an invisible absence : an absence whose invisibility is itself invisible (Elkins 1996 : 170).
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  • Date Issued: 2015

Book Review Growing the next generation of researchers: A handbook for emerging researchers and their mentors, Holness, L

  • Authors: Motshoane, Puleng , Muthama, Evelyn , McKenna, Sioux
  • Date: 2015
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187205 , vital:44579 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.14426/cristal.v3i2.56"
  • Description: South Africa urgently needs more researchers (NRF, 2008; NDP, 2011). We also need a transformation in the demographics of our researchers. One indicator of this is that currently only 14% of university professors are black African, and only 2% are black African females (DHET, 2012). The Staffing South Africa's Universities Framework includes a number of initiatives to drive the process of growing the next generation of academics. For example, the nGAP project has inserted 125 new posts into the higher education system in 2015, with more to follow. This project allows for new academics to undertake postgraduate study and develop as teachers and researchers through mentorship, a reduced teaching load and so on.
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  • Date Issued: 2015

Book Review: A Renegade called Simphiwe

  • Authors: Magadla, Siphokazi
  • Date: 2015
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/298595 , vital:57719 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0021909614533638"
  • Description: A Renegade called Simphiwe is a “creative-intellectual portrait” of the public (and private) life of the musician Simphiwe Dana (p. 150). Gqola defines the book as “one writer’s engagement with the Simphiwe Dana of the South African public imagination [who]… troubles many categories of belonging in the South African public imagination in remarkable ways” (pp. 17, 32). The book comes at a poignant time as South Africa reflects on the success and challenges of the first 20 years of democracy. Fittingly, Gqola positions Dana within a long tradition of griots in Africa whose art always spoke truth to power.
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  • Date Issued: 2015

Book Review: Global Governance and the New Wars

  • Authors: Magadla, Siphokazi
  • Date: 2015
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/298640 , vital:57723 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02589346.2015.1008676"
  • Description: Mark Duffield's second edition of ‘Global Governance and the New Wars’ offers an important and biting critique of how different actors within the security and development discourse have adapted to the various transformations of war in the post-cold war era. In this picture drawn by Duffield, the power of states in the South continues to be eroded by an exclusionary market that is driven by the global political economy wherein state's development and security responsibilities are increasingly assumed by non-state actors (predominately constituted by Western aid agencies). Those who fall outside the bounds of the state, development and humanitarian aid agencies can be found operating in an expanding shadow economy that is also shaped by a global dynamics which make the conditions for ‘network war' possible. In this context, the lines between ‘war' and peace” are difficult to distinguish. Overall, the book paints a depressing picture on the lack of substantive changes in the livelihoods of the poor as attention has been directed to discussions about ‘new wars' or altered forms of violence that have characterized the post-cold war era. The book unforgivingly exposes the failures of the discursive changes post-cold war to reconceptualize development and security in terms that move beyond description and into substantive change especially regarding shifting the development discourse from its historic modernizing impulses.
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  • Date Issued: 2015

Britain after the Romans : an interdisciplinary approach to the possibilities of an Adventus Saxonum

  • Authors: Lloyd-Jones, Glyn Francis Michael
  • Date: 2015
  • Subjects: Great Britain -- History -- Anglo-Saxon period, 449-1066 , Civilization, Anglo-Saxon , English philology -- Old English, ca. 450-1100 , English literature -- Old English, ca. 450-1100 , Anglo-Saxon race , Genetic genealogy
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
  • Identifier: vital:3657 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1019806
  • Description: In the fifth century, after the departure of the Romans, according to tradition, which is based on the ancient written sources, Britain was invaded by the Angles and Saxons. This view has been questioned in the last century. The size of the ‘invasion’, and indeed its very existence, have come into doubt. However, this doubting school of thought does not seem to take into account all of the evidence. An interdisciplinary, nuanced approach has been taken in this thesis. Firstly, the question of Germanic raiding has been examined, with reference to the Saxon Shore defences. It is argued that these defences, in their geographical context, point to the likelihood of raiding. Then the written sources have been re-examined, as well as physical artefacts. In addition to geography, literature and archaeology (the disciplines which are most commonly used when the coming of the Angles and Saxons is investigated), linguistic and genetic data have been examined. The fields of linguistics and genetics, which have not often both been taken into consideration with previous approaches, add a number of valuable insights. This nuanced approach yields a picture of events that rules out the ‘traditional view’ in some ways, such as the idea that the Saxons exterminated the Britons altogether, but corroborates it in other ways. There was an invasion of a kind (of Angles – not Saxons), who came in comparatively small numbers, but found in Britain a society already mixed and comprising Celtic and Germanic-speaking peoples: a society implied by Caesar and Tacitus and corroborated by linguistic and genetic data.
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  • Date Issued: 2015

Brown hyena habitat selection varies among sites in a semi-arid region of southern Africa

  • Authors: Welch, Rebecca J , Tambling, Craig J , Bissett, Charlene , Gaylard, Angela , Müller, Konrad , Slater, Kerry , Strauss, W Maartin , Parker, Daniel M
  • Date: 2015
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/123277 , vital:35423 , https://doi.10.1093/jmammal/gyv189
  • Description: In the last 50 years, the human impact on ecosystems has been greater than during any other time period in human history (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2003). Large carnivores face anthropogenic threats worldwide, specifically persecution, habitat degradation, and habitat fragmentation (Everatt et al. 2014; Groom et al. 2014; Ripple et al. 2014; Wolfe et al. 2015). Because large carnivores often occupy high trophic levels, their presence influences species at lower levels through trophic cascades (Ripple et al. 2014). Natural experiments, taking advantage of large carnivore management, have shown that large predators provide fundamental ecosystem and economic services that help maintain healthy and diverse ecosystems (Ripple et al. 2014). Additionally, carnivores play an important role in other ecosystem processes, for example, scavenging carnivores may provide regulatory services, such as waste removal, nutrient cycling, and disease regulation. Such services add stability to ecosystems and ensure energy flow through multiple trophic levels (DeVault et al. 2003; Wilson and Wolkovich 2011).
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  • Date Issued: 2015

Building an E-health system for health awareness campaigns in poor areas

  • Authors: Gremu, Chikumbutso David
  • Date: 2015
  • Subjects: National health services -- South Africa , Medical informatics , Public health -- Information services
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc
  • Identifier: vital:4708 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1017930
  • Description: Appropriate e-services as well as revenue generation capabilities are key to the deployment and the sustainability for ICT installations in poor areas, particularly common in developing country. The area of e-Health is a promising area for e-services that are both important to the population in those areas and potentially of direct interest to National Health Organizations, which already spend money for Health campaigns there. This thesis focuses on the design, implementation, and full functional testing of HealthAware, an application that allows health organization to set up targeted awareness campaigns for poor areas. Requirements for such application are very specific, starting from the fact that the preparation of the campaign and its execution/consumption happen in two different environments from a technological and social point of view. Part of the research work done for this thesis was to make the above requirements explicit and then use them in the design. This phase of the research was facilitated by the fact that the thesis' work was executed within the context of the Siyakhula Living Lab (SLL; www.siyakhulaLL.org), which has accumulated multi-year experience of ICT deployment in such areas. As a result of the found requirements, HealthAware comprises two components, which are web-based, Java applications that run in a peer-to-peer fashion. The first component, the Dashboard, is used to create, manage, and publish information for conducting awareness campaigns or surveys. The second component, HealthMessenger, facilitates users' access to the campaigns or surveys that were created using the Dashboard. The HealthMessenger was designed to be hosted on TeleWeaver while the Dashboard is hosted independently of TeleWeaver and simply communicates with the HealthMessenger through webservices. TeleWeaver is an application integration platform developed within the SLL to host software applications for poor areas. Using a core service of TeleWeaver, the profile service, where all the users' defining elements are contained, campaigns and surveys can be easily and effectively targeted, for example to match specific demographics or geographic locations. Revenue generation is attained via the logging of the interactions of the target users in the communities with the applications in TeleWeaver, from which billing data is generated according to the specific contractual agreements with the National Health Organization. From a general point of view, HealthAware contributes to the concrete realizations of a bidirectional access channel between Health Organizations and users in poor communities, which not only allows the communication of appropriate content in both directions, but get 'monetized' and in so doing becomes a revenue generator.
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  • Date Issued: 2015

Bush encroachment in the semi-arid communal grazing lands of Eastern Cape and farmer's perception of causes and livelihood impacts

  • Authors: Libala, Notiswa
  • Date: 2015
  • Subjects: Communal rangelands--South Africa--Eastern Cape Grazing--South Africa--Eastern Cape egetation management--South Africa--Eastern Cape
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Masters , Pasture Science
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/11817 , vital:39109
  • Description: The study was conducted in two communal rangelands of the Eastern Cape Province (Thorn and Mixed bush veld). The objective of the study was to investigate 1) the historical trends of bush encroachment, causes and impacts based on indigenous knowledge and perceptions of the communal people in two savannah vegetation types and 2) to determine the density and cover of woody species in the grazing areas. In each veld type, two villages were selected purposefully. A total of 120 households who own livestock were randomly selected from the four communal areas and a total of 48 elders were selected to provide information on bush encroachment and rangeland condition. For woody density and cover, grazing areas surrounding two homesteads (settlements) were selected from each communal rangeland, Two long transects radiating in the opposite direction from each homestead were established. The woody vegetation survey was conducted at 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800 and 900m distance from each homestead. In each distance, 3 (10 m x 10 m) quadrates were laid to record individual woody plant species, the height, basal stem and canopy diameters. Woody species were classified into seedlings (>0 - 1 m), saplings (>1 - 1.5 m), young shrubs (>1.5 - 2.0 m), mature shrubs (>2 - 3.0 m) and mature trees (>3.0 m). The average household size in of goat was higher than that of other livestock species. A total of 40 woody plant species were identified in all study areas. Acacia karoo, Coddia rudis and Scutia myrtina were the most dominant woody species in all study areas. Most of the woody plant species had the highest abundance in the height class >0 - 1 m. The average total woody plant density in Thorn bush and Mixed bush were 3461 and 2416 number ha-1, respectively. In conclusion both study areas were highly encroached and it was also perceived by elder from both areas that bush encroachment is a problem in the rangelands.
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  • Date Issued: 2015

Business events for the citizens of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Bay

  • Authors: Hastie, Dean
  • Date: 2015
  • Subjects: Place marketing -- South Africa -- Port Elizabeth. , Sightseeing business -- South Africa -- Port Elizabeth
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Masters , MBA
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/7554 , vital:21810
  • Description: The effective application of destination marketing strategies leads to increased business activity within a city. This in turn leads to higher attainment levels of social and economic development. It can therefore be said that destination marketing strategies are an essential factor in the growth and functioning of a city. The objective of destination marketing is the city’s image or identity which in turn is the starting point for developing the city’s brand. Cities require an identity. It is crucial that a city has a unique identity with which visitors, tourists and residents can relate to. Examples of these unique city identities are Los Angeles which is known as the City of Angels and Florence which is known as the City of Lilies. The image of a place influences people’s perceptions and choices when visiting, living and conducting business in a specific city. The city’s image and brand serves as a conduit for city residents to identify with their city. The essence of the brand must be discovered, identified, brought to the surface and not imagined, created or added from the outside through an artificial process. Cities that make use of effective destination marketing strategies have endured a considerable increase in business and leisure activities. Notably, business events are important attractions and drivers for activity in many destinations. Multiple parties designing a brand strategy for a city should thoroughly assess the resources and assets a city possesses. A city branding strategy can enable a city to leverage its ‘tangible and non-tangible assets‟. In order for business tourism to develop in South Africa, it is essential that players within the sector have a thorough understanding of international dynamics in order to capitalise on the opportunities that are provided in South Africa. Nelson Mandela Bay in South Africa is a city with vast potential. The city is ideal as a tourist destination as it is situated along the Sunshine coast of South Africa. It could be said of the city that it is on the threshold of rising eminence in the coming decades. This treatise investigates the approach and success factors for a successful rebranding of Nelson Mandela Bay through business events as part of a destination marketing strategy. The treatise will ascertain which business events residents of the Nelson Mandela Bay would require and support. A survey was conducted among citizens of Nelson Mandela Bay using a questionnaire from which 952 responses were received. The questionnaire measured the respondents’ attitudes to which types of business events they would require and support their feelings on the brand identity of the city as well as the communication medium they would like to receive communication through. The findings of this study indicate that residents of Nelson Mandela Bay are open to the use of business events as the main driver in terms of business event attendance and support. Furthermore, the residents have made it clear they will support exhibitions, conventions and tradeshows. Facebook and local radio are identified as being the preferred communication method for hearing about events.
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  • Date Issued: 2015

Can perceptions of environmental and climate change in island communities assist in adaptation planning locally?

  • Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Vaccaro, Ismael , Abernethy, Kirsten Elizabeth , Albert, Simon , de Pablo, Javier Fernández-López
  • Date: 2015
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/123310 , vital:35426 , https://doi.10.1007/s00267-015-0572-3
  • Description: Local perceptions of environmental and climate change, as well as associated adaptations made by local populations, are fundamental for designing comprehensive and inclusive mitigation and adaptation plans both locally and nationally. In this paper, we analyze people’s perceptions of environmental and climate-related transformations in communities across the Western Solomon Islands through ethnographic and geospatial methods. Specifically, we documented people’s observed changes over the past decades across various environmental domains, and for each change, we asked respondents to identify the causes, timing, and people’s adaptive responses. We also incorporated this information into a geographical information system database to produce broad-scale base maps of local perceptions of environmental change. Results suggest that people detected changes that tended to be acute (e.g., water clarity, logging intensity, and agricultural diseases). We inferred from these results that most local observations of and adaptations to change were related to parts of environment/ecosystem that are most directly or indirectly related to harvesting strategies. On the other hand, people were less aware of slower insidious/chronic changes identified by scientific studies. For the Solomon Islands and similar contexts in the insular tropics, a broader anticipatory adaptation planning strategy to climate change should include a mix of local scientific studies and local observations of ongoing ecological changes.
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  • Date Issued: 2015

Capacity building for developmental local government in the Kicukiro District of Rwanda

  • Authors: Rutebuka, Balinda
  • Date: 2015
  • Subjects: Sustainable development -- Rwanda , Economic development -- Rwanda , Local government -- Rwanda
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Doctoral , DPhil
  • Identifier: vital:8490 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1020906
  • Description: This study investigated the capacity building for developmental local government with reference to the Kicukiro District of Rwanda. Its aim was to examine the contribution of capacity-building interventions towards a developmental local government and at the same time investigate factors that hinder their implementation in Kicukiro district. The study provides an extensive historical background on local government in Rwa-nda with a particular focus on its policy, legal and institutional framework, whereby the developmental local government environment has been analysed. Furthermore, this study explores the theoretical framework of capacity building in general, and in this regard particular emphasis was given to capacity building in relation to developmental local government. The study also argued that without appropriate capacity it would be difficult for the district to fulfil its developmental mandate. This research followed both qualitative and quantitative approaches of study. It involved a survey in which a structured questionnaire and in-depth interviews were used as data gathering instruments. Through data analysis, findings of the study have shed light on the fact that capacity building constitutes an indispensable mechanism for local government to achieve its developmental mandate, despite challenges associated with the process of capacity building. The study found that the Kicukiro district has made a significant progress towards the implementation of capacity-building interventions despite the fact that these interventions are still fragmented, uncoordinated and still supply-driven. Furthermore, the study revealed that the capacities already built generated considerable impetus that contributed to socio-economic development within the Kicukiro district. The study also found that despite the progress made in both capacity building and development in Kicukiro district, there are capacity gaps and factors which are undermining further progress in this regard. Therefore, the study recommends, among others, an effective co-ordination of capacity-building interventions in order to avoid duplication and fragmentation of capacity-building efforts.
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  • Date Issued: 2015

Capacity building for local economic development: an evaluation of training initiatives in the Cape Winelands district

  • Authors: Kamara, Richard Douglas
  • Date: 2015
  • Subjects: Economic development projects -- South Africa , Community development -- South Africa , Employees -- Training of
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/7969 , vital:24331
  • Description: The paradigmatic shifts in development approaches epitomised by contemporary discourses about development confer a prominent role on localised and territorial development. A growing scepticism on the efficacy of traditional development approaches provides the impetus for a strong understanding of the need to reconceptualise development theory and practices and to manipulate policies so as to remedy the imbalances of antecedent development approaches. This dissertation investigates the extent to which the existing training interventions can build skill capacity for Local Economic Development (LED) projects in the Cape Winelands municipalities. This will improve our understanding about how, and under what conditions, capacity building for LED can contribute to more inclusive economic and social change. In discussing the theoretical perspective of the study, the relationship between development, LED and capacity building is conceptualised through the lens of contemporary development theory of human development and capability approach. This will improve our understanding on how the capability approach aspires to re-orient approaches to socio-economic development and public policy, away from welfare, which is based on income and expenditure to well-being. The dissertation applies these ideas triangulating diverse research methods and data sources. It combines a literature review and documentary analysis, observation, surveys conducted with municipal authorities in Cape Winelands District Municipality. In addition, semi-structured interviews were held with LED Portfolio Councillors in the municipality as well as with key Officers from Local Government Sector for Education and Training Authority, Department of Economic Development and Tourism in Western Cape, South African Local Government Association and Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs. The methodological findings reveals the following pitfalls: Flaws in LED enabling policy framework for capacitating municipal staff; poor policy implementations; training fund difficult to access; lack of competent staff in local municipalities to effectively and efficiently implement LED policies and strategies; and lack of supportive environment in workplace to enhance transfer of trained skill to the job. Various recommendations resulting from the outcomes of the empirical study, namely the responses made by the respondents during the empirical survey, are proposed in the final chapter. It is shown that this research has, as a result, contributed to the body of knowledge of development theory and practices by improving our understanding of how, and under which conditions, capacity building training can support processes of social change in localised and territorial development.
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  • Date Issued: 2015

Cape mountain zebra (Equus zebra zebra) habitat use and diet in the Bontebok National Park, South Africa

  • Authors: Strauss, Taniia
  • Date: 2015
  • Subjects: Habitat conservation -- South Africa -- Western Cape Zebras -- Habitat -- Conservation -- South Africa -- Western Cape
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Masters , MTech
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/11374 , vital:26917
  • Description: Cape mountain zebra habitat utilization and diet in the dystrophic fynbos habitat of the Bontebok National Park was found to be highly selective. Mountain zebra concentrated in specific sectors and habitat types in the park on a seasonal basis, preferring recently burnt habitat with a veld age younger than one year in all seasons, except during the warm, dry summer. Proteoid Fynbos with a veld age between one and five years was preferred in the cool winter, while Drainage Lines and the fringes of Inland Pans were preferred during summer. Asteraceous Fynbos was avoided, irrespective of veld age, as well as all other habitats with a veld age greater than five years. Within habitat types with a veld age greater than one year, specific sites were selected and avoided on a seasonal basis, which were found to differ in terms of habitat suitability, based on the availability of dietary plant species. The annual diet consisted of 72.6% grass, 11.8% restio, 5.9% sedge, 8.8% geophyte and less than 1% forb and shrub species. Three grass species formed the bulk of the annual diet, Themeda triandra, Cymbopogon marginatus and Eragrostis curvula, for which leaf use was greater than stem use. Themeda trianda was preferred throughout the year, but contributed to the diet in greatest proportion in the warm, dry summer, when it was available at greatest leaf height and diameter. Cymbopogon marginatus was preferred during the cool winter, when diet composition and greenness was also greater than in other seasons. Preference of Cymbopogon marginatus decreased as leaf height and diameter increased. Eragrostis curvula was preferred in the warm autumn, when it composed the largest proportion of the diet, and selection of this species at feeding sites was based on both greenness and volume. In summer mountain zebra also preferred grass stems and inflorescences of Aristida diffusa, Stipagrostis zeyheri and Briza maxima. During the cool spring the diet included stems and inflorescences of sedges and restios, primarily Ischyrolepis capensis, and in autumn, dry bulbs of the geophyte Moraea collina were utilized. Habitat utilization, as well as grass height and greenness surveys in the Recently Burnt Area, and the nutritional status of mountain zebra was found to be in line with the Summer Nutritional Stress Hypothesis. The hypothesis proposes that the harsh climatic conditions of the area during summer are linked to the low availability of C4 grass, on which grazers would depend in summer. This is supported by the avoidance of the Recently Burnt Area in summer, and the preference of species like Themeda triandra during summer despite low greenness levels. Faecal nitrogen and phosphorus for mountain zebra in Bontebok National Park and De Hoop Nature Reserve were at minimum levels during the warm seasons. Faecal nitrogen was below the threshold for dietary deficiency in all seasons except spring, and faecal phosphorus was above the threshold for deficiency during two seasons only. The findings of this study are in line with other recent work on mountain zebra in the Baviaanskloof suggesting that, due to a high required rate of forage intake, mountain zebra are limited by both poor resource quantity and quality in dystrophic fynbos ecosystems.
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  • Date Issued: 2015
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