M.Cur. (Professional Nursing) / Nursing as a humanistic profession has a responsibility to train expert practitioners with a responsibility towards the community. A variety of factors necessitate the cooperation between distance education an~ contact education. Some residential universities are planning, or are involved in, the presentation of courses through distance education. For the purpose of this study, a descriptive contextual investigation was undertaken of the profile of distance learning nursing students; and with a view to provide guidelines to residential universities for .the preparation and presentation of distance education courses. Relevant literature pertaining to distance education and contact education was studied and the Nursing for the Whole Person Theory as 'Nell as Holmberg's theory on guided didactic discussion formed the basis for compiling a conceptual framework for this study. A questionnaire was handed out to distance learning respondents at an Institute for Nursing and findings were obtained from them. It appears that the older, more adult person who has job and household responsibilities, is involved in distance education. It also appears that guidance by the tutor, especially by indirect means through the use of stUdy guides and assignments, is important. Supporting services, such as student counselling and accessible libraries, are needed. A variety of support groups can either have a positive or negative influence on the student's motivation level as well as success in her studies. Closer contact between educational institution and employer is recommended. All the facilities which are conducive to the studenfs learning should be functional and supportive guidance by the tutor, especially through indirect contact, is important for the student's success and motivation level. In the recommendations and guidelines possible solutions to problems are suggested. This accommodates the conceptual framework for interaction between the tutor, system and student to facilitate positive patterns of interaction between student's internal and external environment. A responsible, expert and independent practitioner can thus develop.

Cultural differences between countries are widely acknowledged, and these differences manifest in HQ-subsidiary relations of MNCs. Central to the strategies that MNCs implement outside their home countries is the understanding of the dynamic nature of culture. While studies exist on the HQ-subsidiary relations these studies fall short in understanding the impact on individuals employed by MNCs. Thus, understanding if common differences between MNCs from different countries exist and how these manifest at the individual level may provide valuable insight into the nature of culture. 404 responses from 12 MNCs representing 5 countries was collected and analysed. Analysis included principle component analysis, ANOVA, correlation co-efficients and the cultural distance index. Results indicate that individual and organisational cultures are weakly correlated to home and host country national cultures; and individual culture is correlated to organisational culture. Common differences exist between MNCs with HQ in different countries. MNCs from South Korea are the most accommodating to the subsidiary organisational culture, while the Netherlands the least accommodating. Unintentionally results indicated that the perception of cultural distance is different to what is predicted. Culture is elastic and evidence exists for individuals holding an in-culture and out-culture. MNCs should understand the impact of culture at the individual level rather than only at the national level. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

This research was motivated by the desire to understand how regulatory reforms affect the task environment in an emerging market. Regulatory reforms in emerging markets have been used amongst others to correct market failures, increase competition or grow economic sectors. However, on occasion unintended consequences arise from these interventions leading to “liabilities of foreignness” for some of the entities operating in the institutional environment. To this end, this study aimed to establish if these effects were prevalent in the South African mining environment by studying two cases of companies operating in the sector, represented by a foreign and a domestic entity.An exploratory qualitative research design was followed since the researcher was unsure whether the phenomena being observed constituted LOFs or not. A literature study was conducted in order to define the construct of liabilities of foreignness and its impact on the task environment. Therefore the objective of the study was to;Establish the effect of institutional reforms in facilitating the development of LOFs in emerging markets.The research did show the regulatory reforms to alter the business environment somewhat, therefore leading to LOFs in the task environment. However, no entities appeared to be benefiting from the current regulatory reforms, as suggested by the literature. This is possibly due to organisational learning or the efficacy of the individual entities in applying coping strategies to mitigate against LOFs in the institutional context. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Phonological processes can be characterized as functions from input strings to output strings, and treating them as mathematical objects like this reveals properties that hold regardless of how we implement them (i.e., with rules, constraints, or other tools). For example, Chandlee (2014) found that a vast majority of phonological processes can be modelled as Strictly Local (SL) functions, which are sensitive to a window of finite size. Long-distance processes like vowel and consonant harmony are exceptions to this generalization, although a key observation is that they look local once irrelevant information is ignored. This thesis shows how such selective attention can be modelled by augmenting SL functions with autosegmental tiers (e.g., Goldsmith, 1976). A single tier is sufficient to capture individual long-distance processes, and having multiple tiers available allows us to model multiple long-distance processes simultaneously as well as interactions between local and non-local patterns. Furthermore, probabilistic variants of these tier-based functions allow for a cognitively plausible model of what Zymet (2015) calls distance-based decay. Unrestricted use of multiple tiers is, however, quite powerful and so I additionally argue that tiersets should be defined from the perspective of individual input elements (i.e., potential process targets). Each input element designates a superset-subset hierarchy of tiers and pays attention to them alone; the tiers specified by another input element are either redundant or irrelevant. Restricting tiersets in this manner has beneficial consequences for learnability as it imparts a structure onto the learner's hypothesis space that can be exploited to great effect. Furthermore, tier-based functions meeting this restriction fail to generate a number of pathological behaviours that can be characterized as subsequential functions, a type of function that has previously been offered as a model of non-local phonological processes (Heinz and Lai, 2013; Luo, 2017; Payne, 2017). In light of their empirical coverage, their comparative lack of pathological predictions, and their efficient learnability, I conclude that tier-based functions act as a more accurate characterization of long-distance phonology.

For distinct vertices u and v of a nontrivial connected graph G, the detour distance D(u, v) between u and v is the length of a longest u-v path in G. For a vertex v ∈ V(G), define D-(v) = min{D(u, v) : u ∈ V(G) - {v}}. A vertex u (≠ v) is called a detour neighbor of v if D(u, v) = D -(v). A vertex u is said to detour dominate a vertex u if u = v or u is a detour neighbor of v. A set S of vertices of G is called a detour dominating set if every vertex of G is detour dominated by some vertex in S. A detour dominating set of G of minimum cardinality is a minimum detour dominating set and this cardinality is the detour domination number γD(G) . We show that if G is a connected graph of order n ≥ 3, then γD(G) ≤ n - 2. Moreover, for every pair k, n of integers with 1 ≤ k ≤ n - 2, there exists a connected graph G of order n such that γD(G) = k. It is also shown that for each pair a, b of positive integers, there is a connected graph G with domination number γ(G) = a and γD(G) = b.

For distinct vertices u and ν of a nontrivial connected graph G, the detour distance D(u, ν) between u and ν is the length of a longest u-ν path in C. For a vertex ν in G, define D+(ν) = max{D(u, ν) : u ∈ V(G) - {ν}}. A vertex u is called a hamiltonian neighbor of ν if D(u, ν) -D+(ν). A vertex v is said to hamiltonian dominate a vertex u if u = ν or u is a hamiltonian neighbor of ν. A set 5 of vertices of G is called a hamiltonian dominating set if every vertex of G is hamiltonian dominated by some vertex in S. A hamiltonian dominating set of minimum cardinality is a minimum hamiltonian dominating set and this cardinality is the hamiltonian domination number γH(G) of G. It is shown that if T is a tree of order n ≥ 3 and p is the order of the periphery of T, then γH(T) = n - p. It is also shown that if G is a connected graph of order n ≥ 3, then γH(G) ≤ n - 2. Moreover, for every pair k, n of integers with 1 ≤ k ≤ n - 2, there exists a connected graph G of order n such that γH(G) = k. For a vertex ν in G, define D- (ν) -min{D(u, ν) : u ∈ V(G) -{ν}}. A vertex u is called a detour neighbor of ν if D(u, ν) = D- (ν). The detour domination number γD(G) of G is defined analogously to γH(G)- It is shown that every pair a, b of positive integers is realizable as the domination number and hamiltonian domination number, respectively, of some graph. For integers a, b ≥ 2, the corresponding result is shown for the detour domination number and hamiltonian domination number. The problem of determining those rational numbers r and s with 0 < r, s < 1 for which there exists a graph G of order n such that γD(G)/n = r and γH/(G)/n = s is discussed.

The distance d(u,v) from vertex u to vertex v in a digraph G is the length of the shortest directed path from u to v. The eccentricity e(v) of vertex v is the maximum distance of v to any other vertex of G. A vertex u is an eccentric vertex of vertex v if the distance from v to u is equal to the eccentricity of v. The eccentric digraph ED(G) of a digraph G is the digraph that has the same vertex set as G and the arc set defined by: there is an arc from u to v iff v is an eccentric vertex of u. The idea of the eccentric digraph of a graph was introduced by Buckley (Congr. Numer. 149 (2001) 65) and the idea of the eccentric digraph of a digraph by Boland and Miller (Proceedings of AWOCA'01, July 2001, p. 66). In this paper, we examine eccentric digraphs of digraphs for various families of digraphs and we consider the behaviour of an iterated sequence of eccentric digraphs of a digraph. The paper concludes with several open problems.

There has been a phenomenal growth in distance education since it's early days as correspondence study. Computers and the tools that go along with them, help to bridge the gap between physically separated people. Computers allow for resource sharing, decentralization, and limitless opportunities for instantaneous communication and transfer of information around the world. A variation of the traditional distance learner is the on-line learner. The on-line learner is a student on or near campus who chooses to take a class on-line versus the traditional classroom method. Questions are generating regarding why these students choose to take these on-line courses when they have they have access to the physical classroom. Since these students are familiar with an on-line setting, questions are also generating regarding the availability of on-line services. The participants included in this study were on-line learners enrolled in 13 totally on-line classes offered at a large, public, research university located in a mid-Atlantic state. The purpose of this study was to examine what motivates students to take on-line courses and to assess their interest in receiving other academic and student services on-line. Data were collected through a survey designed specifically for this study. / Master of Arts

All quantitative measurements have a degree of measurement uncertainty. While the term uncertainty can be essentially defined as doubt, measurement uncertainty in this sense instead inspires assurance in a quantitative value to a certain degree of confidence. Dating back to the advent of modern statistics in the 1700s, an international consensus on measurement uncertainty did not occur until the 1995 release of the Guide to the Expression of Uncertainty in Measurement (GUM), the fundamental document on the subject. The GUM was further adopted by major players in the field of measurement including the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM), National Measurement Institutes (NMI), and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and is used as the gold standard of documentary standards in labs around the country. Gunshot residue (GSR) patterns of distribution are used to establish a range of possible distances that the muzzle of the firearm was from the target in order to piece together a particular series of events. Using the firearm and ammunition that was involved in that particular crime, an analyst can perform test fires using fabric swatches attached to test panels at varying muzzle-to-target distances, generally every three to six inches between contact and 48 inches. This allows for the creation of comparable patterns of soot and GSR to the actual pieces of evidence. Because different distances can have considerably different residue patterns, it is important that a method for creating the test panels minimize uncertainty in order to be considered reliable and reproducible. When establishing a protocol for determining the measurement uncertainty in the creation of test panels, the two most important factors are the measuring device and a repeatability study. A measuring device, in this case a stainless-steel ruler, with metrological traceability reduces the measurement uncertainty because every value is reliable and traceable back to an original source. A repeatability study is then used to take numerous measurements over time under similar conditions. Using this data, statistical analysis can be applied to evaluate the standard deviations and uncertainties. A total of 238 measurements were taken by eight members of the Boston Police Department Crime Laboratory on eleven different days over the course of a month. The measurements were divided into eight baseline distances that the firing device, a Ransom Rest, had been set to: 3”, 6”, 9”, 12”, 18”, 24”, 36”, and 42”. The data was analyzed as a whole, as well as split into two groups: a group of four analysts who are proficient and authorized to perform GSR distance determination testing (Group A), and a second group of four analysts with no GSR distance determination training or experience (Group B). At a confidence interval of 95.45%, the reported uncertainty was found to be 0.082 inches for the total group, 0.045 inches for the group trained in performing GSR distance determination, and 0.043 inches for the group with no experience in distance determination testing. F-test statistical analysis of the standard deviations of each distance, along with a comparison of the uncertainties, indicates no significant difference between the abilities of the two groups and that it’s possible a new uncertainty of measurement will not be required when current GSR distance determination analysts leave or new analysts are hired and trained, given that all other variables remain constant. The outlined method and experiment for determining measurement uncertainty was successful in that it met the four main requirements set forward by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) National Accreditation Board (ANAB): (a) include the specific measuring device or instrument used for a reported test result in the estimation of measurement uncertainty for that test method; (b) include the process of rounding the expanded uncertainty; (c) require the coverage probability of the expanded uncertainty to be a minimum of 95.45%; and (d) specify a schedule to review and/or recalculate the measurement uncertainty.

Research conducted over multiple decades explores student attrition from higher education institutions. The majority of this research relates to traditional, on-campus student populations. However, colleges and universities are serving more nontraditional students than before by increasing distance education course offerings. Although enrollments are increasing, few studies examine retention of nontraditional learners in a distance education setting. Even fewer suggest institutional action based on student satisfaction of nontraditional, distance learners. This study examined student satisfaction and education-related priorities of Utah State University (USU) undergraduate students at regional campus locations throughout the state of Utah. Perceived programming needs were determined based on the discrepancy between student-reported satisfaction and importance rankings of education-related items. The highest discrepancies between priorities and satisfaction of undergraduate students at USU regional campus locations were: use of student activity fees, adequate availability of financial aid, tuition being a worthwhile investment, registering for classes with few conflicts, scheduling of courses to complete program, timeliness of financial aid announcements, academic advisor’s knowledge of major requirements, instruction within major, variety of course offerings, and classes being scheduled at convenient times.