Please read the abstract in the dissertation / Dissertation (M (Dietetics))--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Human Nutrition / M (Dietetics) / unrestricted

Sports fans often scrutinise the team selection strategies employed by their favourite team's coach or selection panel. Many of these fans believe that they can perform the selection process far better than those tasked with the responsibility. Fantasy leagues, provide a platform for fans to test their hand at this selection procedure. Twenty20 cricket is a new and exciting form of cricket and has become very popular in recent years. This research focuses on bringing these concepts together by proposing a binary integer program to determine a team selection strategy for fantasy league cricket. This is done in a Twenty20 setting. The approach used in this study focuses on evaluating the effectiveness of previously developed performance measures in a fantasy league setting. Adjustments to these measures are made and new measures are proposed. These measures are then used to select a fantasy league team using a prospective approach. This is done to provide fantasy league participants with a mathematical procedure for fantasy league team selection.

The definition of metrics capable of reporting on quality issues is a difficult task in the health care sector. This thesis proposes a goal-driven methodology for the development, collection, and analysis of health care quality metrics that expose in a quantifiable way the progress of measurement goals stated by interested stakeholders. In other words, this methodology produces reports containing metrics that enable the understanding of information out of health care data. The resulting Health Care Goal Question Metric (HC-GQM) methodology is based on the Goal Question Metric (GQM) approach, a methodology originally created for the software development industry and adapted to the context and specificities of the health care sector. HC-GQM benefits from a double loop validation process where the methodology is first implemented, then analysed, and finally improved. The validation process takes place in the context of adverse event management and incident reporting initiatives at a Canadian teaching hospital, where the HC-GQM provides a set of meaningful metrics and reports on the occurrence of adverse events and incidents to the stakeholders involved. The results of a survey suggest that the users of HC-GQM have found it beneficial and would use it again.

This research endeavour with Moose Cree First Nation provides insights into how emerging Indigenous methodologies are fundamentally grounded in an Indigenous epistemology that, for the purpose of this project, was found to be integral to youth and community wellbeing. More specifically, this project highlights an Indigenous perspective of health and wellbeing, milo pimatisiwin, that yields individual, collective and relational strengths with its focus on reconnecting youth to the land. This thesis offers methodological contributions in an effort to discuss research with Indigenous peoples beyond the participatory paradigm; it also develops on coming to know through the “visiting way” and elaborates further on Indigenous methods such as learning by doing concepts and conversational method. Discussing approaches of coloniality and settler-colonialism highlighted territoriality and land dispute issues, but most importantly here, these approaches established how the land is at the very core of the Omushkego people’s epistemology. Two land-based initiatives with Moose Cree First Nation were examined in this study. The initiatives provide insights into Indigenous resurgence as they relate to the land, to spirit, and to life stage teachings. The community experiences suggest how vital it is to center Indigenous knowledge in research and land-based initiatives for youth wellbeing as they contribute to developing, integrating and applying Indigenous methodologies, given this process is inter-related to fostering milo pimatisiwin. The Omushkegowuk people’s conceptions of health and wellbeing challenges colonial ideas and actions, and just as important, it allows for the production of knowledge within the context of Indigenous methods, experiences and wisdom.

The basic objective of this thesis is to identify some of the basic trends tending to shape the Canadian economy. The procedure followed was to examine economic theory and previous forecasting studies to determine methodological principles and apply these principles to estimate the possible future course of the Canadian economy between 1965 and 1980. No comprehensive economic theory appears to be presently developed to explain and therefore to form a complete basis for predicting the economic growth of a nation. In an effort to make economic theory manageable, many variables affecting economic growth and development such as those of sociology tend to be ignored in quantitative terms. Together with these unquantifiable variables, it is not known how many non-economic factors affect economic growth. It would seem to be these many unknown factors that tend to cause errors in the results of long range economic forecasts. Economic growth, defined as the expansion of a nation's capacity to produce, in an already advanced industrial economy, is heavily dependent on the quantity and quality of the nation's labour force, natural resources, real capital, and the technological level in the society. These basic determinants are tempered by the sociological, institutional, and consumption trends or factors within the economy. Although many articles have been written on various aspects of economic growth, the present state of knowledge does not appear to be appreciably past the theorizing stage. As no complete theory of economic growth and development appears to exist, the long range economic forecaster may gain some insights from economic theory but depend very much on his own resources to make various forecasts. The most common method to determine output appears to necessitate a population forecast from which a labour force estimate is made and then with assumptions regarding per-man productivity, an estimate for total output can be made. Sophisticated population and labour force forecasts tend to divide the population into age and sex specific cohorts and then analyze the trends within each of these cohorts. The methodology used in this thesis was based on broad estimates for various trends per thousand population. Due mainly to an expected high birth rate in Canada, the population is anticipated to increase at about 3.8 percent per year to about 25,800,000 by 1980. Of this figure, about 10,000,000 are expected to make up the labour force. The two significant trends expected in the labour force are a large influx of young people and a greater participation of women in the labour force. In this thesis, the total output was separated into agriculture, government and public administration, and commercial non-agricultural sectors. This enabled the analysis of the trends in the work force, productivity, and output in each sector to be examined. The significant trends in output expected are an increase in per-man productivity, but a declining labour force in agriculture, a rather constant productivity per man, but an increase in the total labour force in the government and public administration sector, and an increase in both the labour force and productivity per-man in the commercial non-agricultural sector. The real increase in output of the combined sectors is estimated to approximate 4.6 percent per year between 1965 and 1980 for the Canadian economy. With the total output estimated, an estimate was made as to the division of the output between capital accumulation, government expenditures, consumer expenditures, imports and exports. It was found that the division of the output between these broad sectors tended to be rather stable in relation to the gross national product. Because of this stability, future estimates for the broad categorical spending were based mainly on simple trend projections. From the historical spending patterns, it would appear difficult to justify any drastic changes in the basic spending patterns. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

This thesis presents a methodology for, and a case study of, the transformation of a social representation. The basis of the thesis is derived from an understanding of representations as a complex, dynamic, pluralistic phenomena that both exist in time and draw their form and meaning from past and present knowledge(s). We are guided by an interest in understanding how one might study a social representation that is already an entrenched social phenomena and how one might go about studying such an entity in a systematic fashion over time. We devised a method through which data can be aggregated over a bound, measurable unit of time and analyzed systematically into core and peripheral systems, allowing for the study of transformation of representation of long duration. Our methodology thus embeds social representations in particular historical, temporal moments in order to assess the structural formation of the representation. To assess the applicability of our methodology, we undertook a study of the social representation of physicians in televised medical dramas. The case of the physician was selected because of their existence as a known social phenomenon of long-duration with a prominent, continuous social presence. In our exploration of this case, we sought to answer two questions. The first asks, ‘what is the social representation of the physician as presented in televised medical dramas’, while the second queries is ‘if and how this social representation has changed over time’. We present thus not only the identification and transformation of a representation, that of the physician, but we also offer a methodology with which to do so. Our methodology demonstrates that exploring representations in the past as a way to study the transformation of social representation has potential to generate new knowledge about old things. While the study of newly emerging phenomena presents an ideal time to study social representations, the study of older representations offers the opportunity to better understand how knowledge is created, changed, and re-created.

This diploma thesis deals with the development and further evaluating of a project of develop and implement of a software. It tracks a running project and then on evaluates it according to the methodology for project management, research in a field of project participants and personal highlights. The introduce is scoped on the characteristic of the project and to possibilities of evaluating. Then follows an introduction with the area of project realization and a short brief of the project develop. At the end, there are formulated evaluations of the project and suggestions for possible improvement.

The aim of this thesis is to pass on the specific view on problems of multimedia and e-learning in teaching including making a methodology for creating multimedia teaching application. The methodology will make the work of creating multimedia teaching application easier for the creators (especially teachers). As a component of this thesis is a detailed description of functionality of software Camtasia Studio. This software offers sufficient quantity of functions for creating the multimedia data. This software was used in creating a few sample multimedia applications. This created multimedia applications were tested by students and succeeded. The thesis is concentrated on all teachers and offers them a chance for better teaching. It is not limited for teachers, it also can be used by other people. There are also mentioned problems of compression, codecs and formats, which are related to the subject of this thesis. There is also mentioned a topic concerned with communication, because it is considered as a part of teaching.

Loyalty, improvement, better understanding of customers -- all these notions attract the interest and striving for improvement of many managers. The segmentation has become an indispensable part of path from a company to customers. Dividing market into distinctive groups allows a company to target customers in a better way. The energy industry in the Czech Republic is an example where the segmentation methodology is not working clearly, so entire organisations become disoriented as an effect of not clear B2B customer division. As there are not so many segmentation tools that would be made exclusively for an energy company, I decided to study this field and design a new one. In the first part, I will look into the energy industry specificities and functioning of the electricity market in order to understand the specifics of this industry on the Czech market. By looking into segmentation methods, particularly in the area of B2B, the important assumptions of the correct and effective segmentation will be discovered. In the second part, I applied the knowledge from the theoretical framework where the basic knowledge about the B2B market and the segmentation in this area were introduced. Moreover, the most appropriate variables of segmentation were grouped in the logical way. This knowledge will be used as a base for the creation of new segmentation methodology and application of the knowledge gained from the extensive research conducted abroad. All in all, the ultimate goal of my work is to create the new advanced segmentation methodology tool and to propose how the most suitable solutions can be designed.

In this paper we present the major theoretical and methodological pillars of evolutionary political economy. We proceed in four steps. Aesthetics: In chapter 1 the immediate appeal of evolutionary political economy as a specific scientific activity is described. Content: Chapter 2 explores the object of investigation of evolutionary political economy. Power: The third chapter develops the interplay between politics and economics. Methods: Chapter 4 focuses on the evolution of methods necessary for evolutionary political economy.