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The Effect Of Filler Localization On The Properties Of Biopolymer Blends, Recent Advances: A Review
Get PDFArticleIn recent times, the field of biopolymer (BP) blends has been the focus of
intensive fundamental and applied researches. Such BP combinations possess
unique properties that are different from those of the individual components.
However, most polyester polymers are thermodynamically immiscible because
of their poor interactions. In the past, a third component, known as a welldefined
diblock or triblock copolymer, whose chemical structure is identical to
that of the main components, was usually used as a compatibilizer in order to
emulsify the interfacial phase, decreasing the interfacial tension and refining
the phase size. Currently, nanofillers are used to improve the phase morphologies
of immiscible BP blends. The main advantage of using nanofillers, when
compared to copolymers, is that the former can simultaneous act as nanoreinforcements
and compatibilizers. In this review, the addition of nanofillers
as the third component in the BP blend systems are reported in relation to
their morphologies, barrier properties, shape memory, thermal, and mechanical
properties. The effects of selectively localized nanofillers on the properties
of the BP blends are also explored, with the aim of establishing the relationships
between the localization of the fillers and the overall properties of the BP
blends. Furthermore, the effect of the processing techniques on the localization
of the nanofillers/BP blend is also reported. The review article discusses recent
progress from 2014 up to 2019 on filler localization of BP blend
nanocomposites
The Perceived Impact Of Performance Appraisal On The Performance Of Small-To-Medium-Sized Enterprises In Zimbabwe
Get PDFArticleOrientation: The increasing focus on human resource management (HRM) and performance
appraisal, in particular, in small- to- medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is a comparatively
recent phenomenon. Unfortunately, much of our knowledge of traditional HRM topics in
large corporations may not necessarily apply in the enterprises.
Research purpose: This study purposed to examine whether performance appraisal had an
impact on SMEs’ performance measured by return on investment (ROI) and innovation in
Harare Province, Zimbabwe.
Motivation for the study: Small- to- medium-sized enterprises are becoming the dominant
form of business in terms of the socio-economic development of countries worldwide, in areas
such as gross domestic product and employment. In view of this, a systematic collection of
information about employees in the enterprises, which forms the bedrock of all human
resource (HR) practice, can be done through performance appraisal. Unfortunately,
performance appraisal in SMEs has not received adequate research attention.
Research design, approach and method: The study employed an ex post facto correlational design
that adopted a purely quantitative approach. A total of 106 owners or managers took part in the
survey. A self-constructed structured questionnaire was used to collect data. The Statistical Package
for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20 was used for both descriptive and inferential statistics.
Main findings: Most owner or managers made use of the 360-degree performance appraisal
method. The study established that very weak and statistically insignificant relationships existed
between performance appraisal and firm performance measured by both ROI and innovation.
Practical/managerial implications: It is recommended that the government through the relevant
ministries and agencies should consider more financial inducements, tax relief for start-ups and
additional grants to support investments in new technology, and more training for owner or
managers. This could, amongst other things, go a long way in assisting them to acquire sufficient
information technology infrastructure for effective implementation of performance appraisals.
Contribution/value-add: The current study is one of the very few, if any, that sheds light on
the nexus between HRM and performance appraisal in particular and the performance of
SMEs in the country. Unlike most studies, the current study adopted a hybrid approach in the
measurement of performance, making use of both objective and subjective measures
Sustainable Broadcasting in Africa: Insights From Two South African Campus Radio Stations
Get PDFArticleUniversity campus-based community radio stations (CRS) are widely
acknowledged as vehicles for supporting grassroot social and economic
development. Despite these stations‟ popularity, the emerging technologies they
exploit to advance such development initiatives, including their exact impact on
their economic and social sustainability, remains a grey area. The objectives of
this study are two-fold. First, to establish the social media applications that
university-based CRS in South Africa employ in fulfilling their broadcasting
mandates. Second, to examine how the utilisation of these applications impact
the economic/ financial and social sustainability of these stations and their
listenership. Drawing insights from in-depth interviews with presenters, station
and programme managers, the study found limited appropriation of WhatsApp,
Facebook, Twitter, station websites, livestreams and podcasts for content programming and broadcasting. Furthermore, while it was unclear how social
media livestreaming contributed to economic sustainability, its effects on social
sustainability found expression in connecting advertisers to livestreams to
support real-time advertising. The implications of these are discussed
Radon Dispersion From A South Africa Gold Mine-Tailings Dam – Measurement And Modelling
Get PDFThesisRadon has been recognised as the main contributor to the natural
radiation dose exposure to human. In addition to natural radon, human
activities like mining have the potential to enhance environmental radon
levels. Gold-mine tailings dams contain traces of 238U and 226Ra, leading
to generation of 222Rn gas in the tailings material due to radioactive decay.
Current methods used to monitor radon from the tailings dams are only
able to provide a close-up of emissions in space and time. These methods
cannot distinguish between tailings radon and background radon as well
as the extent each contributes towards the radon content in the
atmosphere. The only way to determine the increment is through
dispersion modelling. This study develops a technique to accurately
validate radon dispersion modelling that assesses the radon contribution
from Freddies 9 (sometimes referred to as Steyn 9) tailings dam situated
in Odendaalsrus, Free State Province, South Africa. This study was
structured into four parts. The first part dealt with determination of the
radon exhalation rate from the tailings dam. The second part dealt with
measuring the ambient radon concentration in the vicinity of the dam
using Radon Gas Monitors (RGMs). The third part was to measure radon
gas, individual radon daughters, and the F factor at different receptor
points downwind by following the direction of the wind at hourly intervals.
The fourth part involved using the ISCST3 dispersion modelling code to
evaluate radon transport and the effects of local variations around the
tailings dam. Field data were collected during winter months of June to
August in 2016 and 2017. Measurements of the radon exhalation rate, which is the source
term for dispersion modelling from the tailings dam, were performed with
the passive diffusion tube method. Twenty (20) tailings samples were
collected for analysis. The exhalation rate (E) was found to vary from 0.045
Bq/(m2s) to 0.443 Bq/(m2s) with an average value of 0.102 Bq/m2s and a
mean standard deviation of 0.087 Bq/(m2s). The ambient radon concentration values measured with the Radon
Gas Monitors (RGMs), averaged over 116 locations around the tailings dam
distributed over a radius of 2 km from the tailings dam, range from 38
Bq/m3 to 94 Bq/m3, with a mean concentration of 64 ± 11 Bq/m3. These
values are below the 100 Bq/m3 action level stipulated by the National
Nuclear Regulator (NNR) with a slight average increase compared to
background levels of 60 Bq/m3.
Airborne radon concentration at any given location is influenced by
locally exhaled radon and dispersed radon from other locations. As a
means of trying to discriminate between different radon contributors,
radon gas, individual radon daughters, and the F factor were measured at
different receptor points downwind and upwind by following the direction
of the wind at hourly intervals. The AlphaGUARD was used to measure
radon concentration and the Eberline SPA-1A alpha scintillation detector
coupled to Eberline Smart Portable (ESP-2) counter were used to measure
the radon daughters. The Busigin and Phillips three count method was
used to calculate radon daughter concentrations and hence the F factor.
The minimum value of F factor was 0.016 ± 0.012 measured upwind
whereas the maximum value of F factor was 0.502 ± 0.044 measured
downwind. Calculations revealed strong influence by external meteorological
effects on the distribution of radon and radon daughters some distance
from the tailings and background. The F factor, which indicates the “age”
of the gas, and radon gas, increased to their highest values when the wind
was blowing from north-northern-east (NNE). The highest radon daughter
concentrations at various locations were recorded in the mornings.
However, fluctuating and conflicting effects due to different meteorological
conditions on the resultant atmospheric radon concentration, radon
daughters’ concentration and F factor as functions of distance from the
tailings downwind, made the interpretation of results difficult. To further
quantitatively explain these results, an air dispersion model was applied. The USA Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Industrial Source
Complex Short Term 3 (ISCST3) dispersion modelling code using a
Gaussian plume model was used to evaluate radon transport and the
effects of local variations around the tailings dam. The tailings was
modelled as point, total emitting surface area (true geometry) and volume
source. The true area geometry was considered as the baseline source
geometry. To improve the accuracy of the model predictions as compared
to traditional approaches, the area source term was corrected to account
for cracks and fissures on the tailings and the geometry of tailings dam
was modelled by taking into account all emitting surfaces as sources.
Compared to the baseline, the model over predicted the flat ground
area source by up to 274 % and under predicted the top level area source
by up to 50%. The volume emission source was over predicted by up to
300% in 60% of the modelling runs and under predicted by 55% in 40% of
the volume model runs. While the top level area source term produced
lower concentrations at near-field ground-level receptors, accounting for
the wakes effect increased the radon concentrations from the top-level area
source of the tailings dam by up to 239%.
From modeling results, the highest concentration predicted by the
model from the true geometry source was found to be 0.843 Bq/m3, which
correspond to the dose of 0.012 mSv/y to the public of due to radon from
the tailings. This value is less than the 1 mSv/y dose constraint stipulated
by the NNR. Model validation from statistical analysis showed a constant trend
for all the scenarios, with minimum variability in the Index of Agreement
(IOA), Normalized Mean Square Error (NMSE) and Fraction of predictions
within a factor of two (FAC2) values. The analysis were based on the model
results over five days of measurements covering both morning and
afternoon. There is an under prediction in the Fractional Bias (FB) and
Geometric Mean bias (MG) on day 1 afternoon. In addition, the model
performed poorly on day 3 afternoon. Further validation of the model was carried out by isolating radon
from different contributors using the “age” of the gas approach and
applying back calculations to identify origin of the radon measured at each
point downwind. As predicted by the model, the origin of the radon source
was traced back to the tailings
Development Of A Water Network Modelling System To Evaluate Existing Municipal Water Infrastructure In Developing Countries: Case Study Of Swakopmund, Namibia
Get PDFDissertationGeographical Information Systems (GIS) have become more easily accessible with the advent of open-source software such as QGIS. In combination with algorithms, referred to as plugins, written in the Python programming code, the conversion and processing of GIS data sets for use or further processing in other software programs have become less perplexing. The latter can be attributed to the fact that the computing software has become more efficient in processing large data sets with less manual user-input required.
The main purpose of this study is to develop a methodological approach based on the integration of open-source software, e.g., QGIS and EPANET, and engineering practices associated with water distribution network design to enable practitioners to create a water distribution network (WDN) model of an existing network. A major contributing reason for the necessity to develop such methodological guidelines, is that of value-added engineering. By reducing the time required to set up a WDN model, time can be more effectively allocated to the actual technical analyses pertained to hydraulics, water loss management, water quality management and evaluation of network-specific challenges.
The Swakopmund Municipality in Namibia has been chosen as pilot case study. In other words, the methodology adopted focussed on the compilation of a WDN model for Swakopmund by: (i) compiling methodological procedures for the acquisition and processing of data, (ii) identifying various data sources which can be utilised in the absence of traditional data sets, (iii) conducting a sensitivity analysis to determine the effect of incorrect/inaccurate data on hydraulic results within a WDN model, and (iv) deriving equations from graphical sources to enable the automated implementation thereof in data processing software instead of relying on the manual interpretation and reading thereof from graphs and/or nomograms. The use of QGIS and EPANET, as well as the integration thereof with sound engineering practices and judgement, proved to be both viable and practical. The methodological approach and associated process flow diagrams developed, will not only provide guidance to practitioners, but ultimately, it could also assist municipalities in Southern Africa facing challenges in terms of outdated records and budget constraints.
Hence, it is envisaged that the implementation of the methodology and the recommendations for future research will contribute to improved water infrastructure planning, design and management, especially in the Southern African context where water resources are scarce and service delivery remains a pressing issue
A Structural Model On The Effect Of Managerial Interpersonal Competencies, Performance Management And Agency Relationships On The Performance Of Family And Non-Family Owned Smallto-Medium Enterprises In South Africa
Get PDFDissertationThe purpose of this study was to establish the effect of managerial interpersonal
competencies, performance management and agency relationships on the
performance of family and non-family owned small-to-medium enterprises in South
Africa. The often reported problem of low survival and poor performance rates by
these enterprises, which have been attributed among many other reasons, to the
lack of or poor managerial interpersonal competencies of the owner/managers, poor
people management skills and lack of attention to agency relationships that are
naturally found in family and non-family enterprises, gave impetus to this
investigation. Despite such attributions and the growth of literature on managerial
competencies and performance management, most previous researches have
studied managerial interpersonal competencies in isolation, with little effort to
appreciate their interplay with specific human resource management practices, such
as performance management and the varying agency relationships obtaining in
family and non-family enterprises. To close this gap in literature, a structural model
relating managerial interpersonal competencies, performance appraisal, agency
relationships and performance was proposed, based on reviewed literature and
three predominant theoretical perspectives - agency theory, stewardship theory and
the resource-based view.
The study adopted a positivist epistemological and objectivist ontological stances,
which made use of the quantitative approach. Due to lack of comprehensive
sampling frames for both family and non-family owned small-to-medium enterprises
in the province, convenience sampling was deemed most appropriate. The final
sample comprised 210 SME owner/managers in Gauteng Province. The structured
questionnaire containing closed-ended items was the only instrument used for data
collection. Using Structural Equation Modelling, the study developed and tested a
model that can be used to explain the effect of managerial interpersonal
competencies, performance management and agency relationships on the
performance of family and non-family owned small-to-medium enterprises in South
Africa. Group difference analyses were conducted on AMOS version 24 to check whether
there were statistical differences in the structural models for family and non-family
owned small-to-medium enterprises. It was established that more significant
relationships existed in the context of family owned small-to-medium enterprises
when compared to their other counterparts. The main findings of the study indicated
that owner/managers’ interpersonal competencies affected both employee
innovation and profitability as measured by return on investment in both types of
enterprises, and that although the quality of agency relationships in both types of
small-to-medium enterprises had no effect on innovation and profitability, they were
affected by owner/managers’ interpersonal competencies. Furthermore, the way
employee performance was appraised affected the quality of agency relationships
which in turn affected profitability only in family owned small-to-medium enterprises.
Having validated the structural model, and after submitting both theoretical and
practical contributions to the fledgling discipline of HR in entrepreneurial
organisations, recommendations to guide practice, policy and further research were
proffered
Suggested strategies for school management team (smt) members in supporting the well-being of novice teachers in multicultural school settings of the Free State Province
Get PDFThesis (Masters Education)--Central University of TechnologyDue to the various roles, extra ordinary high workloads, the stressful nature of the teaching profession, coupled with a lack of support from schools, fourty percent of novice teachers leave the teaching profession within their first five years of their practise as teachers. These issues seem to inhibit the well-being of teachers and adversely affect aspects confined to their psychological, physical, social and emotional functioning. Furthermore, it appears that school management teams (SMT’s) of multicultural schools in the Letjweleputswa educational district of the Free State province of South Africa seem to provide novice teachers with inadequate support and no to very limited coping mechanisms upon their appointments. It is further observed that novice educators leave the school because of ill-treatment from senior teachers, undue pressure they experience (mostly from SMT members) and a lack of induction and mentoring from their employers. This phenomenon initiated this study to persue it’s main aim, which was to explore strategies for SMT’s (School Management Teams) in supporting the well-being of novice teachers in multicultural school settings of the Lejweleputswa educational district.
A qualitative research methodology, via personal semi-structured interviews was employed to gather an in-depth understanding of novice teachers’ feelings, views and experiences of how various issues and factors affect their well-being and how certain strategies could be employed by SMT to support the well-being of novice teachers. Research findings revealed that -ill discipline of learners; the lack of parental involvement; incomplete homework and school tasks; the language of instruction practiced at schools; the management of learning barriers; overcrowded classrooms; non-conducive teaching environments and the treatment of novice teachers by SMT, are some of the factors that adversely affect the well-being of novice teachers in multicultural school settings of the Letjweleputswa educational district. Some of the strategies that could be employed by the SMT to improve novice teachers’ well-being include induction, mentoring, professional learning communiities, peer support, parent involvement, one on one attention and building resilience.
The implication of the findings indicate that SMT’s need to exert more effort in providing novice teachers not only with one type of support but to support them psychologically, emotionally, physically, socially and occupationally. This will enhance their well-being and contribute to novice teachers staying in the teaching profession, and thus reducing teacher burnout and attrition rates
Reliable Wireless Data Transfer in a High EMI Environment
Get PDFDissertationIndustrial wireless communication has had many recent developments in improving transmission to overcome Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) in the industrial environment. Many industrial monitoring systems available on the market work on real-time communication, with nodes and data logging, which has limitations as to number of nodes that can be supported depending on the system’s processor capabilities.
This research focuses on a different approach to design and implements a wireless industrial monitoring system using LabVIEWTM, a system which is not limited by a certain number of nodes with real-time data logging at nodes and data transmission taking the EMI environment into consideration. In addition, the study looks at creating a wireless monitoring system where delays in system updates are acceptable until real-time log data can be received.
Wireless monitoring devices have many advantages over cable or wired industrial monitoring; including fast deployment, intelligent processing capability and flexibility. In this dissertation, design principles are described in terms of hardware and software development. The aim is to use the existing wireless communication network “IEEE 802.11b/g/n 2.4 GHz” at an industrial plant for communication using techniques to avoid or lower the amount of data which is lost. Moreover, this research looks at processing and logging data at nodes to allow the receiver/server to communicate with unlimited nodes in a timely manner. The research was performed, developed and tested at Route Management-South African Truck Bodies manufacturing plant
Lost in Communication in Higher Education
Get PDFArticleThe bureaucratic and academic nature of higher education institutions (HEIs),
coupled with their complex organisational structures, extensive vertical
hierarchies and large numbers of staff in need of communication, are believed
to often hamper their internal communication processes. This is, to a great
extent, also the case in the South African higher education arena. This article
reports on a study that aimed to undertake research that would direct the
development of a framework for improving internal communication at South
African multi-campus universities. The framework would not only boast of
features which are regarded as good practice by companies in the corporate
sector, but also features based on the recommendations and suggestions of
communication executives from seven multi-campus universities in South
Africa. A mixed methods research design was employed. The research indicates
that communication should be established as a core business value, and be
advocated on all levels. The findings also suggest that management should be
evaluated on their communication skills; regular monitoring of the effectiveness
of communication at main and distance campuses should take place; whilst
communication channels for feedback should be established. The internal
communication framework outlined in the article may aid multi-campus
universities to attain higher levels of excellence, which will subsequently result
in greater business impact and more funding opportunities
Total Interpretive Structural Modelling of Graduate Employability Skills for the Built Environment Sector
Get PDFArticleContemporary practices and future projections in the Built Environment (BE) sector
highlight an increasing demand on Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to produce graduates
possessing relevant skills aligned to meet workplace demands. This study aims to analyse the
key skills influencing BE graduate employability in the United Kingdom (UK) for the benefit of
HEIs. This investigation leverages on a critical review of extant literature and an elicitation of the
perceptions of targeted macro, meso, and micro level key stakeholders in the BE sector to identify
key employability skills. The Total Interpretive Structural Modelling (TISM) technique was used
to analyse the contextual interrelationships among the identified skills to develop a hierarchical
model that provides HEI with insight for BE curriculum development. Six key employability
skillsets hierarchically modelled into four levels were identified as crucial for potential graduates to
successfully attract and adapt to contemporary practices in the Built Environment sector. Findings
reveal communication and team-working skills as critical, independent skills driving the successful
development of the remaining four skillsets. This research extends the literature on employability
skills by investigating the interactions of various skills that predominantly predicts graduate
employability in the Built Environment sector. The resulting TISM skills model provides hierarchical
and logical interdependencies beneficial to assist HEIs to strategically design BE curricular to enhance
graduate employability