List of Titles

Factors contributing to relapse of adult drug users in Buffalo City Municipality Metropolitan, South Africa

Authors: Charlie, Thobeka V
Date: 20xx
Subjects: Substance abuse
Language: English
Type: Thesis , Masters , MPH
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/18380 , vital:42258
Description: According to the WHO [2014], one in every 14 people is regular users of drugs, adding up to a total of 3.74 million people (taken as a percentage of the population as of 2013). While the United Nations Office on Drug Crimes (UNDOC) revealed that in 2015, 167,750 people have died due to direct use of drugs, the patterns of drug use have increased from 1.3% to 9.8% in 2018 (UNDOC, 2018:49-51). The Eastern Cape is one of the poorest provinces of South Africa characterized by a poor primary and secondary education system, a lack of basic facilities, and poor transport infrastructure. It is evident that South Africa in general, and the Eastern Cape in particular, is experiencing a major problem with drug and substance abuse, which is especially common in school-going children. Furthermore, the Eastern Cape have limited access to specialized drug rehabilitative services due to the geographical location of existing services and the cost associated with travelling. Rehabilitation centres are available in both the State-funded and privately-owned institutions, yet the researcher was perplexed as to why, despite the proven effectiveness of the rehabilitation program in the private health care facility, relapse of the drug abusers in the Eastern Cape continues to occur. This study aimed to explore and describe the reasons why adult drug abusers who previously completed a detoxification program at Clinic A in Buffalo City Municipality, relapse after discharge. Understanding the reasons or factors of relapse assisted in the formulation of recommendations to adjust the program and prevent or reduce relapses. In this study, a qualitative, descriptive, contextual and exploratory, qualitative research design was followed to gain insight into and understand the reasons that contributed to the relapse of the adult drug abuser in a private health care facility in the Eastern Cape. 9 The population was defined as the entire group of persons who met the inclusion criteria, who relapsed after successful completion of a drug detoxification program. The sample consisted of 25 relapsed persons who were willing to participate. In Phase 1 of the study, the researcher invited relapsed adult abusers who were readmitted for the detoxification program from January to December 2019 to participate in an individual interview. The data was then reduced into patterns, categories and themes by clustering and coding the data according to Tesch’s steps of analysis. In Phase 2 of the study, the researcher critically analysed the detoxification program currently used in the private health care facility. National and international articles and best-practice standards were also consulted. Finally, a literature control was done to place the findings of the study in the context of what was already known. In the phenomenology, the literature should be reviewed after data collection and analysis so that the information in the literature does not influence the researcher in any way. In phase 3 of the study, the researcher wrote recommendations to improve the detoxification program at Clinic A [BCM].
Full Text:
Date Issued: 20xx

Modelling false positive reduction in maritime object detection

Authors: Nkele, Nosiphiwo
Date: 20xx
Subjects: Computer vision Neural networks (Computer science)
Language: English
Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc (Computer Science )
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/17168 , vital:40862
Description: Target detection has become a very significant research area in computer vision with its applications in military, maritime surveillance, and defense and security. Maritime target detection during critical sea conditions produces a number of false positives when using the existing algorithms due to sea waves, dynamic nature of the ocean, camera motion, sea glint, sensor noise, sea spray, swell and the presence of birds. The main question that has been addressed in this research is how can object detection be improved in maritime environment by reducing false positives and promoting detection rate. Most of Previous work on object detection still fails to address the problem of false positives and false negatives due to background clutter. Most of the researchers tried to reduce false positives by applying filters but filtering degrades the quality of an image leading to more false alarms during detection. As much as radar technology has previously been the most utilized method, it still fails to detect very small objects and it may be applied in special circumstances. In trying to improve the implementation of target detection in maritime, empirical research method was proposed to answer questions about existing target detection algorithms and techniques used to reduce false positives in object detection. Visible images were retrained on a pre-trained Faster R-CNN with inception v2. The pre-trained model was retrained on five different sample data with increasing size, however for the last two samples the data was duplicated to increase size. For testing purposes 20 test images were utilized to evaluate all the models. The results of this study showed that the deep learning method used performed best in detecting maritime vessels and the increase of dataset improved detection performance and false positives were reduced. The duplication of images did not yield the best results; however, the results were promising for the first three models with increasing data.
Full Text:
Date Issued: 20xx

Poverty alleviation strategies and their impact on the livelihoods in Gqumahashe Village (Alice, Eastern Cape) South Africa

Authors: Thengela, Ntombizanele
Date: 20xx
Subjects: Poverty Alleviation
Language: English
Type: Thesis , Masters , MSW
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/18291 , vital:42249
Description: There are between forty-five to fifty-seven percent (45-57%), South Africans who are engulfed in poverty. In an attempt to identify policy instruments that could help change the status quo, the South African government introduced various strategies to alleviate poverty and some have been seen to be relatively successful. The aim of the study was to identify poverty alleviation strategies in Gqhumahashe village and their impact on the livelihoods of the inhabitants. A qualitative approach and a phenomenological research design were used in conducting this study as these approaches allowed participants to share first-hand experiences regarding the issue under investigation. Purposive sampling method was employed to select participants for the study. Twenty-five participants were selected to participate in this study to share their experience as beneficiaries of these poverty alleviation programmes. The data obtained through in-depth interviews were analysed thematically as well as discussed and supported by the relevant literature. Thematic analysis was used to analyse audiotaped interviews. The findings revealed that there are poverty alleviation strategies in place in Gqhumahashe village. Those strategies include free basic and higher education, school feeding schemes, early childhood development and Kari-Gude literacy programmes for elderly. There are also projects such as the Expanded Public Works Programmes; Community Works Projects and the Municipality Infrastructure Grants. Lastly, Free Health Care Services and Social Welfare Service or Social Grants are strategies that are available in the village to alleviate poverty. The findings also revealed that there is high rate of unemployment in the village. In conclusion, the participants were very happy about the Municipality Infrastructure Grant because it has opened many opportunities for the inhabitants to be employed and it improved the road infrastructure. The recommendation drawn from the study, were that government should create more sustainable jobs for the disadvantaged. Government should also create jobs for the unemployed young graduates. The study recommends that these programmes to alleviate poverty should be extended to other villages across South Afric
Full Text:
Date Issued: 20xx

The Factors Influencing the Behavioural Intention of Overweight Adults to Use Wearable Devices for Sustained Health Monitoring

Authors: Ogundele , Oluwaseyi Caleb
Date: 20xx
Subjects: Digital media
Language: English
Type: Thesis , Masters , MCom (Information Systems)
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/13903 , vital:39725
Description: The volume of wearable devices that can be used for sustained health monitoring purposes is continuously growing within the healthcare sector. These devices allow users to track their own activity levels in real time. However, there are factors that may inhibit the behavioural intention to sustain the use of wearable devices for health monitoring in the long term by overweight adults. These factors include privacy concerns, costs of obtaining wearable devices, theft, frequent charging and short battery life of wearable devices and bulkiness of some wearable devices. It is against this backdrop that this study examined the factors influencing the behavioural intention of overweight adults in South Africa to make use of wearable devices for sustained health monitoring. This research made use of the Expectation Confirmation Model (ECM) as the theoretical foundation of the study. In achieving the aim of this study, a qualitative research approach was used. The purposive sampling technique was selected to identify twenty (20) overweight adults (aged 18-59 years) who are using wearable devices in East London, South Africa. Interviews were conducted with the twenty participants to identify the factors that will influence their behavioural intention to make use of wearable devices to monitor their health. Through thematic analysis, data provided by participants was grouped and summarised into relevant themes to answer the main research question. The study developed a framework that identifies the factors influencing behavioural intention of overweight adults to continue using wearable devices for sustained health monitoring. The factors that were identified include confirmation, perceived usefulness and satisfaction of wearable devices for sustained health monitoring. The realisation of weight loss, monitoring of daily activities and calories through the use of wearable devices was found to positively influence the behavioural intention of the users of wearable devices to continue their usage. However, the major factors that may inhibit the continuous usage of wearable devices for sustained health monitoring are privacy concerns, costs of obtaining wearable devices, theft, frequent charging and short battery life of wearable devices and bulkiness of some wearable devices. Based on the findings, the study recommended the following: (1) the wearable device manufacturers should assure the users of their privacy and confidentiality by providing the needed ii | P a g e interfaces for this purpose; (2) the manufacturers of wearable devices should make the devices less bulky so that they can be more portable; (3) South African government should provide security operatives in isolated areas where people are not feeling secure; (4) the manufacturers of wearable devices make the purchase prices of wearable devices more affordable, especially for low income people; and (5) the manufacturers of wearable devices should improve on battery life and quality of wearable devices so that the devices are more time efficient and require less charging of the devices.
Full Text:
Date Issued: 20xx