Methods are presented for the predication of the short-term and sustained load behaviour of reinforced concrete frames. These procedures are evaluated by an experimental program using a particular structure and loading configuration. The results of two short-term tests and one sustained load test are compared with the analytic predictions. The inadequacy of classical methods of structural analysis for sustained load problems is also discussed. It is concluded that the methods using small elements, numerical integration and successive iterations can provide accurate predictions of short-term and sustained load behaviour of reinforced concrete beams. / Thesis / Master of Engineering (ME)

Yes / To assess physical activity outcomes of a pedometer-based physically active learning (PAL) intervention in primary school children. Methods: Six paired schools were randomly allocated to either a 6-week teacher-led pedometer-based physically active learning intervention or a control (n = 154, female = 60%, age = 9.9 [0.3] y). Accelerometers assessed total daily sedentary time, light physical activity (LPA), and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA). Preintervention mean daily MVPA minutes grouped participants as Low Active (<45 min/d) and High Active (≥45 min/d). Results: From the final sample size, the intervention (n = 52) significantly improved LPA versus control (n = 31, P = .04), by reducing sedentary time. More intervention (+10%) than control (+3%) pupils met the 60 minutes per day guidelines. In both intervention subgroups, pupils spent less time in LPA (P < .05) versus control. The greatest nonsignificant increase was found in the Low Active pupils MVPA levels. Conclusions: Improvements in LPA were statistically significant in the intervention versus control group. In subgroup analysis, Low Active pupils in the intervention showed the greatest beneficial effects and the Most Active pupils may have replaced MVPA and sedentary time with LPA. The intervention group housed clusters of pupils showing variable responsiveness, justifying routine examination of subgroup variability in future studies.

Yes / Based on an empirical investigation in the context of Romania, this paper identifies a moderating role of neutralization techniques within ethically questionable consumer behavior. The quantitative study is based upon a synthesized model of Theory of Planned Behavior incorporating the factor of perceived unfairness and neutralization techniques. Significantly, neutralization techniques are shown to have a negative, but definite impact on the action to behave unethically. This leads to their consideration as a process of thinking, rather than as static judgement. As such, neutralization techniques are conceptually distinctive to the other factors. The paper analyses the results specific to the Romanian context, but noting implications for an understanding of the morality of markets with similar historical, political and economic conditions. Overall, the findings offer a more nuanced reading of consumer behavior. The paper places moral flexibility in terms of a specific cultural context, but also reveals how neutralization techniques can moderate ethically questionable behaviors beyond matters of self-interest, which in turn has implications for how companies can consider their responsibilities in relation to their customers.

Intervention for students' antisocial behaviour is a challenging issue for teachers in secondary schools. Even though Government has implemented intervention measures in secondary schools to assist teachers in interveni.ng in curbing antisocial behaviour by students, the problems of student misconduct still prevail. The purpose of this study was to investigate intervention measures employed to curb antisocial bebaviour by students in a secondary school in Lobatse Botswana. The researcher was interested in the types of intervention measures employed by teachers in the school and the effectiveness of those implemented by Government, which are the pastoral care and the guidance and counseling programmes. The researcher was interested in assessing the impact of these intervention measures in assisting teachers to curb antisocial behaviour by the students. To accomplish this aim seven teachers were purposively sampled as they were the relevant people affected by the area of study. The research was conducted in the form of a case study. It was based on the qualitative approach in research. Multi methods of collecting data, such as interviews, document analysis and observation were used in order to ensure validity and reliability. Based on the respc.nses from the empirical research, as well as personal observation, the results of the study revealed that, teachers mainly apply punitive measures to curb antisocial behaviour by students. The intervention measures of pastoral care and guidance and counseling experience challenges in implementing their interventions, teachers seem to rely more on the pastoral programme than on guidance and counseling to. assist in issues of student's problem behaviour. Teachers indicated dissatisfaction with the input by the guidance and counseling programme. They complained about the inactiveness of the guidance department in assisting them to curb students' antisocial behaviour. The research recommends that, the guidance and counseling programmes be upgraded. Teachers require in-service training on the application of intervention measures that are more positive and have a long term impact on students' behaviour. Teachers need to withdraw from implementing punitive measures like punishment, to curb students' antisocial behaviour. Intervention measures such as punishment have been seen to have a negative impact on the students as punitive measures may cause the students to become rebellious and stubborn. Positive intervention measures have a lasting impact on students' characters and behaviour. Positive interventions help to instill character traits such as responsibility and accountability in students'. So teachers need to adhere to such intervention measures when curbing students' antisocial behaviour. / Thesis (M.Ed) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2012

No description available.

Strategy tools are an important part of strategy work. However, there is considerable debate in the management literature about their actual role, deployment, and conceptualization. Scholars claim that there is a lack of fine-grained analyses to explain strategizers’ activities with regard to their interactions with strategy, their supporting knowledge base, and associated artefacts or tools, despite growing contributions towards the understanding of strategy work dynamics. This study aims to contribute to this gap by discussing research undertaken through ethnographic methods on the day to day work of in-house strategy consultants. By interacting with in-house consultants through active participation and observation, this study observes and analyses the enactment of strategy tools in action. The study focuses on the use of strategy tools, the process they are placed in, and the ultimate purposes they serve. A “strategy-as-practice” lens is adopted, theoretically accessing the use of strategy tools through “reflection in action” and sensemaking. By working with and for consultants, this dissertation obtains insights related to both frontstage and backstage aspects of strategy work, obtaining results that contribute to the skewed existing evaluations on the use of strategy tools. This study proposes a reflexive account on the roles of strategy tools in everyday work by laying out a variety of data items and rhetorical devices. Analysing data, obtained from observations, interviews, written material, and focus groups, takes the findings into first and second order analysis. Based on hundreds of pages of observations, 47 interviews, two focus groups, numerous data files, and other follow up talks, the continuous engagement with data is conveyed to the reader through data outputs, including narratives, vignettes, and visual representations, which give space to a vivid display of what was encountered in the field through this ethnographic study. The findings show that strategy tools are used more than we think, especially in the backstage work of strategy teams. In addition, the use of strategy tools tends to be sequential (some strategy tools are used more in specific phases of strategy projects). In addition, their presence in strategy projects is not always evident at first sight – tools tend to be disassembled and reassembled by their users to create new tools, which are thereafter addressed explicitly or implicitly by strategizers and their audiences. Hence, the thesis proposes an “invisible presence of strategy tools”, especially as observed in the work of experienced strategy workers. By embarking on a journey of Cheshire cats and continuous reconfigurations of sensemaking cues, the reader is invited into what makes the adventurous work of strategy practitioners, and the lege artis their work encompasses.

Social concern about deviant, delinquent and disorderly behaviour has a long history in the UK. Propelled by the New Labour government’s Crime and Disorder Act 1998, the ‘antisocial behaviour agenda’ reframed the problem and constructed a punitive solution (Newburn, 2007). While in recent years Scottish policy has diverged from the punitive rhetoric established in Westminster, the ‘antisocial’ individual continues to be conceptualised as part of a disruptive minority that fails to conform to societal norms of behaviour. This antisocial minority has, invariably, come to be associated with young people and, in particular, young people from ‘disadvantaged’ socio-economic circumstances. While there is a growing body of empirical research on this topic, most has focused on young people’s relationship to antisocial behaviour in terms of their role as victim or as perpetrator. Alternatively, studies have evaluated how young people experience specific policy interventions. The principal aim of this doctoral research is to shift away from attempting to explain why young people become involved in antisocial behaviour and instead explore the diverse ways they define, experience and relate to it. Its gaze, therefore, is upon young people’s everyday interactions with antisocial behaviour and, in so doing, seeks to produce a more rounded understanding of young lives. The research was based within ‘Robbiestoun’ (a pseudonym): a predominantly social housing estate in the suburbs of a Scottish city and, as such, was able to situate young people’s experiences of antisocial behaviour alongside their experiences of living in a ‘disadvantaged’ socio-economic place. It employed participatory ethnographic methods to engage with a range of young people across multiple research sites. The empirical analysis found that understandings of what is, and is not, normal behaviour were fundamental to young people’s relationship with the antisocial. Social and physical disorder was a regular occurrence, and for many, it was an established, even normal, part of everyday life. Nonetheless, young people were aware of external categorisations of Robbiestoun and its residents as ‘abnormal’, an identity which most young people resisted and challenged. Young people’s behaviour in public spaces was similarly contested. Professionals (and many adults) had clear ideas about what constituted normal, social behaviour and these frequently conflicted with those held by young people. Such conflict was most evident for those young people actively engaged in criminal and antisocial acts. Not only was antisocial was a label these groups identified with, but they also rationalised their involvement in antisocial behaviour as an expected, and indeed necessary, part of growing up in Robbiestoun. The research revealed that young people utilised a range of strategies, techniques and rationales which enabled them to navigate the area’s ‘abnormal’ identity and ‘get on’ with ‘normal’ life. Such tactics were not universal across Robbiestoun, but rather varied according to young people’s own behavioural standards and social norms. The research concludes by arguing that the different relationships young people have to antisocial behaviour were, in fact, expressions of economic inequality, poverty and material disadvantage. This is an important point, but one not adequately addressed by policy makers. Rather than pursuing policy objectives based on the pursuit of ‘correct’ social values and norms, it is contended that more attention must be given the role of local norms in shaping young people’s definitions of, and relationships to, antisocial behaviour. Only then can a more rounded understanding of everyday lives in a disadvantaged place be developed and, in turn, workable solutions be found and delivered.

No description available.

No description available.

De senaste tio åren har det skett en stor ökning av monetära gåvor till humanitära hjälporganisationer i Sverige. Trots att de monetära gåvorna har ökat, har behovet ökat i större utsträckning. Just nu pågår konflikter eller allvarliga kriser i 27 länder runt om i världen och 89,4 miljoner människor är i behov av hjälp. FNs sökta summa för att möta dessa människors behov är 11 miljarder dollar mer än vad de efterfrågade för fem år sedan. Förutom detta innebär akuta kriser, likt vid tsunamin år 2004 att det sker närmast explosionsartade ökningar av spontana gåvor till hjälporganisationer. Även om dessa gåvor är viktiga för organisationerna innebär regelbundna gåvor en större möjlighet för planering och flexibilitet Detta faktum innebär att det är av stor vikt att öka antalet regelbundna givare. Studier har visat vad det är som gör att en individ väljer att skänka pengar till en hjälporganisation eller inte. Däremot saknas det vidare forskning kring olika typer av givare och deras eventuella skillnader. Enligt modellen Reasoned action approach kan en individs intention att utföra ett beteende härledas till individens attityd, subjektiva norm och upplevda kontroll över det specifika beteendet. Genom att ta reda på måtten på dessa samt intentionen går det sedan att förutspå samt förändra beteendet. Det faktum att spontana givare valt att stödja hjälporganisationer och deras arbete med monetära bidrag men ändå inte valt att teckna ett regelbundet givande gör att det är av intresse att undersöka vad som påverkar en spontan givares intention till att förändra sitt beteende. Således är studiens frågeställning: Vad påverkar en spontan givares intention att förändra sitt beteende och bli regelbunden givare? För att besvara frågeställningen och uppfylla syftet med studien genomfördes en kvantitativ undersökning i form av en enkät som distribuerats via sociala medier. Vid analysen av det empiriska materialet visade det sig att spontana givare inte har intentionen att börja skänka pengar regelbundet till humanitära hjälporganisationer i Sverige. Spontana givares attityd, subjektiva norm och upplevda kontroll över beteendet bidrar alla tre till deras intention. Det som till störst del bidrar till intentionen är deras upplevda kontroll över beteendet i form av känslan av att de kommer ha råd med regelbundna donationer samt att processen att tecknat ett sådant avtal är enkel. Denna information kan användas av hjälporganisationer för att öka antalet regelbundna givare.