Browsing by Title
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Yi, Long; Connan, James (Association for Computing Machinery, 2007)[more][less]
Abstract: Self-tuning has been an elusive goal for operating systems and is becoming a pressing issue for modern operating systems. Well-trained system administrators are able to tune an operating system to achieve better system performance for a specific system class. Unfortunately, the system class can change when the running applications change. Our model for self-tuning operating system is based on a monitor-classify-adjust loop. The idea of this loop is to continuously monitor certain performance metrics, and whenever these change, the system determines the new system class and dynamically adjusts tuning parameters for this new class. This paper describes KernTune, a prototype tool that identifies the system class and improves system performance automatically. A key aspect of KernTune is the notion of Artificial Intelligence (AI) oriented performance tuning. It uses a support vector machine (SVM) to identify the system class, and tunes the operating system for that specific system class. This paper presents design and implementation details for KernTune. It shows how KernTune identifies a system class and tunes the operating system for improved performance. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/53 Files in this item: 1
Yi_KernTune(2007).pdf (262.3Kb) -
Yi, Long; Tucker, William D. (Telkom, 2008)[more][less]
Abstract: This paper describes Kiara, an open source SIPbased communication system that provides the building blocks to enable Deaf relay services. We have implemented a prototype that provides real-time text, voice and video to a variety of end user devices over a variety of networks. The work-in-progress concerns the addition of relay services for the Deaf. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/523 Files in this item: 1
YiTuckerKiara2008.pdf (173.6Kb) -
Rowe, Michael (Faculty of Community and Health Sciences, University of the Western Cape, 2009)[more][less]
Abstract: Institutions of higher learning are under pressure to respond to the changing needs of today's learners and the use of information and communication technology has been at the forefront of that change. Furthermore, the use of social software to enable people to interact with each other in a dynamic way has been identified as one possible solution. This survey sought to identify the knowledge and attitudes of South African physiotherapy students towards the use of social software in a physiotherapy department. The design was a cross-sectional, descriptive survey that took place in a university physiotherapy department in the Western Cape, South Africa. It included 135 students and used a self-developed questionnaire. Results showed that these students had only a superficial understanding of social software and that they did not make use of common services. They did however, show an openness to new approaches and a willingness to interact with lecturers outside the traditional classroom setting. A lack of access to appropriate technology was identified as one possible factor for their lack of understanding. Conclusion Any attempt to incorporate social software to improve teaching and learning practice into this department would have to be accompanied by significant training and support. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/62 Files in this item: 1
Rowe_Knowledge2009.pdf (68.47Kb) -
Frantz, Jose M. (Faculty of Community and Health Sciences, University of the Western Cape, 2008)[more][less]
Abstract: Objective: The author aimed to develop a valid and reliable questionnaire that would measure the knowledge of learners relating to risk factors for chronic disease of lifestyle such as stroke, diabetes and hypertension. The questionnaire was intended to be used as part of a health education programme aimed at improving the knowledge of learners as it relates to risk factors for chronic diseases of lifestyle. Method: The development of the questionnaire was guided by Williams 9 steps of questionnaire design and was influenced by the national curriculum of education’s life orientation programme and literature. A 31 item questionnaire was designed and presented to an expert panel. Content validity was done by the expert panel and face validity was tested through informal discussions with high school learners. Reliability testing was done using the test-retest method and Kappa co-efficient was used to test stability of the items. The questionnaire was administered to 40 high school learners but only 30 did the test the second time. Results: The questionnaire yielded a reliability analysis that revealed internal consistency with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.897. The average score obtained by learners using this questionnaire was 14. The questionnaire can be used for learners with a grade 10 education. The questionnaire also highlighted that learners had a moderate knowledge relating to risk factors for chronic diseases of lifestyle and the need for appropriate information interventions was emphasized URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/115 Files in this item: 1
FrantzQuestionnaire2008.pdf (372.6Kb) -
Ntumba, Alexis; Scott, Vera; Igumbor, Ehimario U. (OpenJournals Publishing, 2012)[more][less]
Abstract: Background: Namibia bears a large burden of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), and the youth are disproportionately affected. Objectives: To explore the current knowledge, attitudes and behaviour of female adolescents attending family planning to HIV prevention. Methods: A cross-sectional study design was used on a sample 251 unmarried female adolescents aged from 13 years to 19 years accessing primary care services for contraception using an interviewer-administered questionnaire. Data were analysed using Epi Info 2002. Crude associations were assessed using cross-tabulations of knowledge, attitude and behaviour scores against demographic variables. Chi-square tests and odds ratios were used to assess associations from the cross-tabulations. All p-values < 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Results: A quarter of sexually active teenagers attending the family-planning services did not have adequate knowledge of HIV prevention strategies. Less than a quarter (23.9%) always used a condom. Most respondents (83.3%) started sexual intercourse when older than 16 years, but only 38.6% used a condom at their sexual debut. The older the girls were at sexual debut, the more likely they were to use a condom for the event (8% did so at age 13 years and 100% at age 19 years). Conclusions: Knowledge of condom use as an HIV prevention strategy did not translate into consistent condom use. One alternate approach in family-planning facilities may be to encourage condom use as a dual protection method. Delayed onset of sexual activity and consistent use of condoms should be encouraged amongst schoolchildren, in the school setting. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/515 Files in this item: 1
NtumbaHIVFemaleAdolescents2012.pdf (438.9Kb) -
Wotshela, Luvoyo (Univ. of Fort Hare) (Published by History Dept, University of the Western Cape, 2009)[more][less]
Abstract: Since its initiation, South Africaʼs post-apartheid land reform programme has generated extensive analysis and critique that in turn has yielded a body of scholarship. Discussion revolves around the official policy of the programme, the challenges associated with its implementation and its reception at local levels. It cannot be overstated that much of the discourse on the formulation of the programme itself commenced in the dying years of apartheid, through a series of workshops, policy conferences, research projects and publications. Prompted by glaring disparities in the countryʼs social and living conditions and primarily by entrenched imbalanced landownership, contemporary land reform dialogue has a well-built backdrop. What, however, is our understanding of local community politics that played perceptible roles in triggering land redistribution and facilitating patterns of settlement? This article gives some insight into a veiled history of interplay between community mobilisation politics, governance and official land reform policy in the Lukhanji municipality of the Eastern Cape during South Africaʼs transitional years of 1995 to 2006. After outlining how land redistribution was initially driven by forces operating outside government action, the article proceeds to illustrate the frailty of the government land redistribution accomplishment. Moreover, it demonstrates the complex nature of a rural setting that has arisen from community-facilitated and incipient government land redistribution achievements in the area. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/103 Files in this item: 1
WotshelaLand2009.pdf (520.8Kb) -
Bock, Zannie (Taylor & Francis, 2008)[more][less]
Abstract: This paper explores how two testifiers at the Human Rights Violation hearings of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1996 used selected markers of evaluation (shifts in tense, the inclusion of direct speech and code-switching) to express evaluative meanings and position themselves, the police and their audiences in relation to their narratives. Both testifiers are mothers of young activists who were pursued, detained and tortured by police in the 1980s. The paper argues that it is through the subtle though significant linguistic choices the women make that their perspective is construed and their 'narrative truth' realized. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/267 Files in this item: 1
Bock_Language2008.pdf (555.2Kb) -
Holdridge, Christopher (University of Cape Town) (Published by History Department, University of the Western Cape, 2010)[more][less]
Abstract: This article examines Sam Sly’s African Journal (1843–51), a literary and satirical newspaper published by William Layton Sammons in Cape Town. It contends that the newspaper utilised satire to forge British cultural affinity in the colony, as well as to encourage and preserve the conservative social boundaries of propriety and family values espoused by white middle-class colonists. This differed from the more widely studied position of satire as a subversive challenge to the established order, with Sammons avoiding sexually explicit, scandalous humour or overt attacks on personal character. In a period of growing white consensus, the African Journal’s use of satire in the 1840s formed part of the cultural politics of establishing bourgeois values through the medium of appreciation of British literature and popular culture. Satire in Sam Sly’s African Journal thus functioned ideologically to extend British cultural dominance and affinities, and to preserve and instil white bourgeois moral codes. Although much satire was shorn of the racial reality of the Cape Colony, seeking to replicate an impression of metropolitan whiteness, those satires that focused on race derided the Khoikhoi and Xhosa as incapable of achieving equality with whites, drawing on growing anti-humanitarian sentiment in the Cape. The African Journal’s popularity, however, diminished in the face of the anti-convict agitation of 1848–50, when colonists opposed the landing of ticket-of-leave convicts from Ireland as an impediment to the goal of representative government, through petitions and boycotting supplying to the government. Satirising these measures as a radical betrayal of British loyalty, Sammons’s support dwindled owing to his criticism of popular feeling. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/206 Files in this item: 1
HoldridgeLaughing2010.pdf (4.079Mb) -
Schneider, Helen; Lehmann, Uta (Routledge, 2010)[more][less]
Abstract: One of the consequences of massive investment in antiretroviral access and other AIDS programmes has been the rapid emergence of large numbers of lay workers in the health systems of developing countries. In South Africa, government estimates are 65,000, mostly HIV/TB care-related lay workers contribute their labour in the public health sector, outnumbering the main front-line primary health care providers and professional nurses. The phenomenon has grown organically and incrementally, playing a wide variety of care-giving, support and advocacy roles. Using South Africa as a case, this paper discusses the different forms, traditions and contradictory orientations taken by lay health work and the system-wide effects of a large lay worker presence. As pressures to regularise and formalise the status of lay health workers grow, important questions are raised as to their place in health systems, and more broadly what they represent as a new intermediary layer between state and citizen. It argues for a research agenda that seeks to better characterise types of lay involvement in the health system, particularly in an era of antiretroviral therapy, and which takes a wider perspective on the meanings of this recent re-emergence of an old concept in health systems heavily affected by HIV/AIDS. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/458 Files in this item: 1
SchneiderHealthSystems2010.pdf (278.2Kb) -
Kerfoot, Caroline; Winberg, Chris (Juta & Company Ltd, 1997)[more][less]
Abstract: The book gives detailed and theoretically-grounded practical advice on how to proceed collaboratively through the various stages of the action research cycle, including building a repertoire of literacy practices and activities for teachers and learners to draw upon in the research process. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/221 Files in this item: 1
KerfootActionResearch1997.pdf (3.278Mb) -
Hames, Mary (Jacana Media, 2008)[more][less]
Abstract: Introduction: South Africa is a country that warrants specific interest in the exploration of the significance of the liberal rights that have been assigned to homosexuals in the context of its quest towards citizenship and equality for all. There are several indicators that make this country unique with regard to the recognition of sexual orientation. Firstly, it is the only country on the African continent that ensconced the right to sexual orientation in its constitution; secondly, through protracted litigation homosexuals were afforded other significant rights, amongst them, the right to adopt; the right to a deceased partner’s pension benefits; the right to immigration of foreign partners; the recognition of children born to same-sex couples by way of donor insemination; the right to non-discrimination in employment; the decriminalization of sodomy between consenting adult men; full custody of children in instances of divorce; becoming joint, legal parents of adopted children and most recently the right to enter into a civil partnership. The right to marry offers the promise of more substantive equality and inclusive citizenship. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/611 Files in this item: 1
HamesLesbiansCivilUnionAct2008.pdf (74.26Kb) -
De Ville, Jacques (Griffith University, Griffith Law School, Socio-Legal Research Centre, 2007)[more][less]
Abstract: In this article, Desmond Manderson’s book, Proximity, Levinas, and the Soul of Law (2006) is analysed specifically with reference to the accuracy with which it translates Derrida’s thinking into law. Manderson, in a number of instances, invokes Derrida’s thinking as a ‘corrective’ to that of Levinas. The author shows that this invocation by Manderson of Derrida’s texts is selective and does not take account of Derrida’s broader ‘philosophical’ approach. The author points to the differences between, but also the correspondence in the thinking of Levinas and Derrida. He contends that being true to Derrida’s thinking requires that proximity be viewed not as simply making law responsive as proposed by Manderson, but as having a paradoxical structure. The latter would give expression to the distinction that Derrida draws between the conditional and the unconditional. Only if proximity is viewed in this manner will judges be faced with a true responsibility in deciding negligence cases; only then will justice stand a chance. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/381 Files in this item: 1
DeVilleMandersonDerridea2007.pdf (1.236Mb) -
du Toit, Francois (Juta, 2000)[more][less]
Abstract: This article investigates the limitation of freedom of testation in terms of the boni mores or public policy from a legal-comparative perspective. The limits imposed by public policy on freedom of testamentary disposition in English and Australian law are analysed, and the limitation of freedom of testation in terms of the good morals in Dutch and German law is investigated. It is proposed that the operation of the boni mores or public policy in these jurisdictions holds valuable lessons for future development in South African law. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/229 Files in this item: 1
Stell LR 2000.pdf (13.72Mb) -
Nleya, Ndodana (Unisa Press, 2011)[more][less]
Abstract: The notion of service delivery protests in South Africa has perhaps become a cliché in South Africa. While there was a lull in protest activity (excluding industrial action) in the first decade of democracy, the second decade has been characterised by increased militancy reminiscent of the anti-apartheid struggle days, with many of these diagnosed as so-called service delivery protests. To be sure, service delivery issues are often mentioned as part of a blend of issues that have caused the different communities to protest in media reports. The role of service delivery in the generation of these protests however has so far not been investigated directly. This article reports the results of a quantitative study using path analysis to investigate the strength of the claim of the link between service delivery and protests in Khayelitsha, one of the protest prone townships in Cape Town. The article concludes that that service delivery affects protests directly and indirectly through its impact on perceptions of service delivery, perception of condition of life and the attendance of meetings. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/596 Files in this item: 1
NleyaServiceDeliveryProtests2011.pdf (1.207Mb) -
Turner, Stephen (PLAAS, University of the Western Cape & Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere Inc. (CARE), 2005)[more][less]
Abstract: The study compares the livelihoods and inter-household sharing mechanisms in a Lesotho village across a 28 year period. The report examines the complex socio-economic structures and systems that are in place in the rural village. Despite external signs of improved housing standards, the study finds ominous signs of growing vulnerability as much of the community's economic backbone has been lost. Options for assistance by external agencies and by social protection systems are explored. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/70 Files in this item: 1
Turner_Livelihoods2005.pdf (882.4Kb) -
de Visser, Jaap; Steytler, Nico; Machingauta, Naison (Community Law Centre, University Western Cape, 2010)[more][less]
Abstract: On 3-4 November 2009 the Community Law Centre hosted a seminar entitled “Policy Dialogue on the Future of Local Government in Zimbabwe”. A diverse spectrum of local government practitioners was assembled to discuss issues related to local government in Zimbabwe. The seminar was structured around six critical themes relating to local government, namely socio-economic transformation, local government institutions and elections, local government financing, traditional authorities, local government functions and supervision of local government. Six authors from Zimbabwe prepared and delivered position papers on the above subject matters against the background of comparative comments from South African academics. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/208 Files in this item: 1
DeVisserLocalGovtZimbabwe2010.pdf (2.142Mb) -
Babajide, Omotola; Leslie, Petrik; Amigun, Bamikole; Ameer, Farouk (MDPI, 2009)[more][less]
Abstract: Biodiesel has attracted increasing interest and has proved to be a good substitute for fossil-based fuels due to its environmental advantages and availability from renewable resources such as refined and waste vegetable oils. Several studies have shown that biodiesel is a better fuel than the fossil-derived diesel in terms of engine performance, emissions reduction, lubricity and environmental benefits. The increasing popularity of biodiesel has generated great demand for its commercial production methods, which in turn calls for the development of technically and economically sound process technologies. This paper explores the applicability of ultrasound in the optimization of low-cost feedstock – in this case waste cooking oil – in the transesterification conversion to biodiesel. It was found that the conversion efficiency of the waste oil using ultrasound was higher than with the mechanical stirring method. The optimized variables of 6:1 methanol/oil ratio at a reaction temperature of 30 °C and a reaction time of 30 min and 0.75% KOH (wt/wt) catalyst concentration was obtained for the transesterification of the waste oil via the use of ultrasound. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/573 Files in this item: 1
BabajideBiodiesel2009.pdf (248.8Kb) -
Hart, Genevieve (Bibliotek I Samhalle (BIS), 2002)[more][less]
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De Ville, Jacques (Springer, 2010)[more][less]
Abstract: In this article the Derrida/Foucault debate is scrutinised with two closely related aims in mind: (1) reconsidering the way in which Foucault’s texts, and especially the more recently published lectures, should be read; and (2) establishing the relation between law and madness. The article firstly calls for a reading of Foucault which exceeds metaphysics with the security it offers, by taking account of Derrida’s reading of Foucault as well as of the heterogeneity of Foucault’s texts. The article reflects in detail on a text of Derrida on Foucault (‘Cogito and the History of Madness’) as well as a text of Foucault on Blanchot (‘Maurice Blanchot: The Thought from Outside’). The latter text shows that Foucault was at times acutely aware of the difficulty involved in exceeding metaphysics and that he realised the importance in this regard of a reflection on literature. These reflections tie in closely with Foucault’s History of Madness as well as with Derrida’s reflections on literature and on madness. Both Derrida and Foucault contend that law has much to learn from literature in understanding the relation between itself and madness. Literature more specifically points to law’s ‘origin’ in madness. The article contends that a failure to take seriously this origin, also in the reading of Foucault’s lectures, would amount to a denial by law of itself. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/313 Files in this item: 2
DeVille2010MadnessCover.pdf (81.85Kb)DeVilleFoucaultMadness-andLaw2010.pdf (274.1Kb) -
Isaacs, Moenieba; Hara, Mafaniso (PLAAS, University of the Western Cape, 2008)[more][less]
Abstract: This research investigated the drivers and the impact of HIV and Aids in fishing communities in South Africa, in order to assist the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism: Marine and Coastal Management (DEAT:MCM) with mainstreaming of HIV and Aids into policy on fisheries. The research was based on in-depth analysis of four fishing communities in the Northern Cape, Western Cape and Eastern Cape. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/67 Files in this item: 1
Isaacs_Mainstreaming2008.pdf (319.2Kb)