The establishment of a mobile phone information security culture: linking student awareness and behavioural intent
- Authors: Bukelwa, Ngoqo
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Information security awareness -- Mobile phone security , Information safety
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD (Information Systems)
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/657 , vital:26485 , Information security awareness -- Mobile phone security , Information safety
- Description: The information security behaviour of technology users has become an increasingly popular research area as security experts have come to recognise that while securing technology by means of firewalls, passwords and offsite backups is important, such security may be rendered ineffective if the technology users themselves are not information security conscious. The mobile phone has become a necessity for many students but, at the same time, it exposes them to security threats that may result in a loss of information. Students in developing countries are at a disadvantage because they have limited access to information relating to information security threats, unlike their counterparts in more developed societies who can readily access this information from sources like the Internet. The developmental environment is plagued with challenges like access to the Internet or limited access to computers. The poor security behaviour exhibited by student mobile phone users, which was confirmed by the findings of this study, is of particular interest in the university context as most undergraduate students are offered a computer-related course which covers certain information security-related principles. During the restructuring of the South African higher education system, smaller universities and technikons (polytechnics) were merged to form comprehensive universities. Thus, the resultant South African university landscape is made up of traditional and comprehensive universities as well as universities of technology. Ordinarily, one would expect university students to have similar profiles. However in the case of this study, the environment was a unique factor which had a direct impact on students’ learning experiences and learning outcomes. Mbeki (2004) refers to two economies within South Africa the first one is financially sound and globally integrated, and the other found in urban and rural areas consists of unemployed and unemployable people who do not benefit from progress in the first economy. Action research was the methodological approach which was chosen for the purposes of this study to collect the requisite data among a population of university students from the ‘second economy’. The study focuses on the relationship between awareness and behavioural intention in understanding mobile phone user information security behaviour. The study concludes by proposing a behaviour profile forecasting framework based on predefined security behavioural profiles. A key finding of this study is that the security behaviour exhibited by mobile phone users is influenced by a combination of information security awareness and information security behavioural intention, and not just information security awareness.
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- Date Issued: 2014
Development of corona-based power supplies for remote repeater stations for overhead HVDC power transmission systems
- Authors: Kaseke, R
- Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD (Physics)
- Identifier: vital:11595 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/d1006787
- Description: More and more people worldwide are becoming “carbon conscious”. This means they are becoming increasingly aware of the imminent adverse effects of global warming. Of late there has been an urgent drive for governments to be on the forefront of all carbon mitigation initiatives. One such drive involves the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change whose parties have been meeting regularly under the banner of Conference of Parties (COP) since 1995. At this conference, parties to the convention review progress made in dealing with climate change. Also key to the deliberations in such meetings are better ways of developing cleaner “carbon free” energy sources. Energy sources of this nature are commonly known as renewable energy sources. In essence global energy trends are constantly moving towards development of more renewable energy sources. It is an undeniable fact that some of viable renewable energy sources especially those with bulk capacity are usually located remotely from load centers. This inevitable reality necessitates the construction of long distance bulk power transmission corridors to link generation sites with load centers. Due to its many inherent advantages over High Voltage Alternate Current (HVAC) for long distance power transmission, High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) is gradually winning the favor of many utilities. In fact, recent advances in HVDC technology have encouraged many utilities to explore the possibility of harnessing remotely located renewable energy sources which would have otherwise not been viable with HVAC transmission. Through the unfortunate and inevitable phenomenon known as corona effect, overhead HVDC conductors suffer real power losses to the air dielectric surrounding them. Through corona, part of the energy carried on the transmission line is expended through ionization and movement of charges in the air dielectric. This study combined physics, mathematical as well engineering concepts to review corona phenomenon around HVDC lines with specific emphasis on space charge generation and motion within ionized DC fields as well as the influence of temperature on corona discharge or power loss. Also, unlike HVAC, performance of an HVDC system relies heavily on the availability of a reliable and robust telecommunication system. One of the key ways of ensuring reliability of a telecommunication system is by making sure that reliable power supplies are in place to power remote repeater stations. A novel concept of quasi-autonomous corona-based power supply (or QC power supply in short) that works on the principle of magnetohydrodymic (MHD) power generation was developed. A small scale experiment was then designed to assess the feasibility of such power supplies. The experiment was conducted with DC supply of a maximum rated voltage of 30 kVDC and generated up to 6 VDC at an optimum ambient temperature of 23°C. These results have confirmed that with further development QC power supplies have the potential of proving reliable power to remotely located repeaters or any other small critical loads along the stretch of the HVDC transmission line. Practical HVDC transmission systems operate voltages in the excess of 500 kV. By linear extrapolation of the above mentioned results; one would expect to yield up to 100-, 120- and 160-VDC from a 500-, 600- and 800- kV HVDC system, respectively. Although the study succeeded in conceptualizing a CMHD idea upon which the novel QC power supply was developed, quite extensive and rigorous design, modeling, prototyping and experimentation processes are still required before the first QC power supply can be commissioned on a practical HVDC line
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- Date Issued: 2012