The Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) is a subset of the global Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), and for some reasons NEITI has been regarded by many actors and observers as the global EITI flagship programme or one of the foremost national chapters of EITI , along with Azerbaijan. When one considers the guiding principles and beliefs of EITI that wealth from a country?s natural resources should benefit it citizens, and this requires high standard of transparency and accountability. When one further consider that EITI growing status as a platform for progress, that is bringing greater transparency and accountability to all aspects of natural resources management including tax transparency, commodity trading and licensing, one would expect ground breaking disclosure which is required on beneficial ownership to ensure that the identity of proprietors of oil, gas and mining companies operating in EITI countries are made public. As such to a greater extent the measurement of the success of (NEITI) will be subjected to evaluation against the principles of EITI. / Mini Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2016. / Public Law / LLM / Unrestricted

This thesis is an attempt to inquire into the interrelationship of transparency and structure. It focuses on the unveiling the layers of transparent and translucent materials which alternately obscure and reveal a sequence of views. The project aspires to create spaces with interplay of vision and blockage by exploring the correlations of light, transparency, translucency, opacity, diffusion, reflection, floatation and lightness. It explores the crucial relationship of its bold tensile structure with the habitable spaces. / Master of Architecture

Improper grants payments stemming from weaknesses in business processes have been a focus of the U.S. president, Congress, and federal and state governments since 2009. Researchers have demonstrated that the internal control weakness at the federal, state, and local government level has contributed to the problem of compliance. The Office of Management and Budget issued federal rules effective in December 2014 to address the problem of federal award compliance. Despite these measures, there is a gap in the literature on strategies for recipients of federal grants to meet compliance requirements. The purpose of the qualitative descriptive study was to explore how recipients can satisfy compliance requirements across the full life cycle of their grants. Systems thinking and compliance theories were selected to analyze data. Participants were 20 certified grants management specialists. The research questions included inquiry on the strategies for federal award compliance. Described were participants' strategies to improve business processes for grant compliance. Emergent thematic findings included staff and leadership training- as participants' main strategy for complying with uniform requirements, while written policies and procedures and use of grant management software- emerged as secondary strategies. Grant managers may benefit from learning about the strategies described in this study by implementing business process improvements in their organizations. Compliant recipients of grants may have a positive effect on social change with more grant funds becoming available to states, local governments, higher education, and nonprofit organizations for the public good.

No / The purpose of this paper is to present a critical viewpoint on the negative aspects of market, price and cost transparencies to consumers in terms of its costs. It adopts an inter-disciplinary approach from the marketing, economics and accounting literature. The paper explores market transparency in the ever-changing world and uses brand names like Starbucks and iPhone to illuminate instances where imperfect markets are supported by consumers. Recognizing the role that the Internet plays in promoting price transparency, it espouses how extant information can add costs and risks to the consumer’s value judgement. Finally, the paper advocates that arbitrary judgements existing in cost accounting make it difficult to compare unit cost. This could result in consumers paying extra money to benefit from cost transparency. This paper argues that three main issues may arise in providing unit cost to the consumers. First, transparency entails built-in costs, whether they are in taxes or product prices. Second, in accounting, unit cost information is currently not equitable between businesses. Finally, the paper argues that extra time and effort in making sense of unit cost information lead to questions about the viability of transparent costing. The arguments for transparency have been widely discussed, supported and promoted by many. While negative aspects are known to businesses, few consider the consumer’s perspective. By amalgamating evidence and arguments from different disciplines, this paper lends value, providing a critical perspective where transparent unit cost revelation can be more costly and less viable than what is assumed.

No description available.

Color Transparency $(CT)$ is a unique prediction of Quantum Chromodynamics $(QCD)$ where the final (and/or initial) state interactions of hadrons with the nuclear medium are suppressed for exclusive processes at high momentum transfers. While this phenomenon has been observed for mesons, there has never been a conclusive observation for baryons. A clear signal of $CT$ for baryons would be the first evidence of baryons fluctuating to a small size in the nucleus, and the onset would show the transition from nucleon-meson picture to quark-gluon degrees of freedom. The experiment $E1206107$, searching for the onset of $CT$ in protons was completed in $Hall ~C$ at Jefferson Laboratory $(JLab)$ using the upgraded $12 ~GeV ~e^{-}$ beam. It used the High Momentum Spectrometer $(HMS)$ and the new Super High Momentum spectrometer $(SHMS)$ in coincidence to measure the $e+^{12}C \longrightarrow e'+p+X$ reaction in quasi-elastic kinematics. Data were collected on a $^{12}C$ target over the range of $Q^2=8-14.3~(GeV/c)^{2}$, covering the region where a previous $p+A \longrightarrow p'+p+X$ experiment at Brookhaven National Laboratory $(BNL)$ had observed an enhancement. Proton Transparency (PT) was extracted from these data. A rise in the $PT$ as a function of $Q^2$ (defined as the square of the negative of the 4-momentum transfer by the scattered electron) is predicted to be a signature of the onset of $CT$. Our data showed no significant increase and consistent with the traditional nuclear physics calculation. This \MakeLowercase{\doctype} discusses the theory and implementation of the $CT$ experiment, summarizes the data analysis and presents results on hydrogen normalization and nuclear transparency.

Intimate partner violence is also known as domestic violence or spouse abuse. It affects the physical, psychological, social, and financial well-being of many people around the world. Many researchers from health/medical, social, and psychological fields have studied intimate partner violence in an effort to prevent it or to improve overall health and well-being among victims. Ideally, decisions are best influenced by high quality evidence. However, little attention has focused on the quality of this research. This thesis focuses on the theme of transparency relating to study quality, specifically highlighting non-publication bias, biases related to outcome and study methodologies, and overall reporting quality in previously published IPV research. These lessons learned from this research have informed, in part, an original study on intimate partner violence. Finally, this thesis concludes with insights to improve methodological quality and transparency for researchers in the intimate partner violence field. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This thesis presents the design and implementation of a transparent messaging protocol for distributed communication between processors. The processors are designed using dataflow architecture. The protocol ensures transparent asynchronous communication between distributed processes. The protocol is designed such that an application can run without change in virtually any kind of distributed configuration, where configuration is the number of controllers used in the system plus the processor allocation strategy used. It also enables an automated processor allocation strategy to transparently configure an application for any number of processor nodes without requiring any changes or recompilation. The protocol works well even for single-controller applications and for a pre-defined allocation of processors to controllers. The thesis further includes an analysis of the time required for one complete cycle of inter-processor communication. / Master of Science

This thesis examines the extent to which institutional transparency is counterproductive and potentially politicizing within the U.S. Federal Reserve system. It exemplifies a Venn diagram intersection of political and economic theory – and given the meaningful change in behavior at the Fed – to some extent organizational theory as well. This political economy orientation may be illustrated by providing a historical context – and then addressing the relevant catalysts for change: legislative action, financial crises, and the increase in social media technology. In terms of a “broader view,” these changes have occurred against a backdrop of significant changes in the application of Keynesian theories. As a result, this thesis defines modern transparency at the Federal Reserve, including its benefits and potential drawbacks, by connecting the changes in policies and procedures over the last quarter century - and by showing the impact of the evolution of modern New Keynesian interventionist programs within this new environment. The conclusions shown the New Keynesian coincidental contributions to modern interventionalist policies. But the benefits that come from improved transparency have opened the door to unintended consequences – and the main takeaway is the potential for political bias among bankers and the time inconsistencies that come from short-term modifications to otherwise long-term problems. The “secrets of the temple” are no longer secrets…but Greider would agree that the concentration of power and political influence remains the same. / M.A. / This thesis explores to what extent is increased transparency counterproductive and potentially politicizing within the U.S. Federal Reserve system. The Fed is primarily responsible for maintaining price stability, facilitating full employment, and maintaining the health of the banking system, placing it both directly and indirectly at the center of power and influence within American politics. FOMC decisions directly affect American citizens. For instance, their interest rate policies influence the cost of a mortgage, a car loan, a student loan, or possibly the value of 401k accounts – and in the 21st century, the average American is more tied to “credit” than ever before. This analysis will consider how this initiative developed, its original intent, its evolution, and why it may result in significant unintended political consequences. The conclusions illustrated that there are benefits that come from improved transparency. However, improved transparency may have opened the door to unintended consequences.

Effective collaboration between humans and autonomous agents can improve productivity and reduce risks of human operators in safety-critical situations, with autonomous agents working as complementary teammates and lowering physical and mental demands by providing assistance and recommendations in complicated scenarios. Ineffective collaboration would have drawbacks, such as risks of being out-of-the-loop when switching over controls, increased time and workload due to the additional needs for communication and situation assessment, unexpected outcomes due to overreliance, and disuse of autonomy due to uncertainty and low expectations. Disclosing the information about the agents for communication and collaboration is one approach to calibrate trust for appropriate reliance and overcome the drawbacks in human-autonomy teaming. When disclosing agent information, the level of detail (LOD) needs careful consideration because not only the availability of information but also the demand for information processing would change, resulting in unintended consequences on comprehension, workload, and task performance. This dissertation investigates how visualization design at different LODs about autonomy influences transparency, trust, and, ultimately, the effectiveness of human autonomy teaming (HAT) in search and rescue missions. LOD indicates the amount of information aggregated or organized in communication for the human to perceive, comprehend, and respond, and could be manipulated by changing the granularity of information in a user interface. High LOD delivers less information so that users can identify overview and key information of autonomy, while low LOD delivers information in a more detailed manner. The objectives of this research were (1) to build a simulation platform for a representative HAT task affected by visualizations at different LODs about autonomy, (2) to establish the empirical relationship between LOD and transparency, given potential information overload with indiscriminate exposure, and (3) examine how to adapt LOD in visualization with respect to trust as users interact with autonomy over time. A web-based application was developed for wilderness SAR, which can support different visualizations of the lost-person model, UAV path-planner, and task assignment. Two empirical studies were conducted recruiting human participants to collaborate with autonomous agents, making decisions on search area assignment, unmanned aerial vehicle path planning, and object detection. The empirical data included objective measures of task performance and compliance, subjective ratings of transparency, trust, and workload, and qualitative interview data about the designs with students and search and rescue professionals. The first study revealed that lowering LODs (i.e., more details) does not lead to a proportional increase in transparency (ratings), trust, workload, accuracy, and speed. Transparency increased with decreased LODs up to a point before the subsequent decline, providing empirical evidence for the transparency paradox phenomenon. Further, lowering LOD about autonomy can promote trust with diminishing returns and plateau even with lowering LOD further. This suggests that simply presenting some information about autonomy can build trust quickly, as the users may perceive any reasonable forms of disclosure as signs of benevolence or good etiquette that promote trust. Transparency appears more sensitive to LOD than trust, likely because trust is conceptually less connected to the understanding of autonomy than transparency. In addition, the impacts of LODs were not uniform across the human performance measurements. The visualization with the lowest LOD yielded the highest decision accuracy but the worst in decision speed and intermediate levels of workload, transparency, and trust. LODs could induce the speed-accuracy trade-off. That is, as LOD decreases, more cognitive resources are needed to process the increased amount of information; thus, processing speed decreases accordingly. The second study revealed patterns of overall and instantaneous trust with respect to visualization at different LODs. For static visualization, the lowest LOD resulted in higher transparency ratings than the middle and high LOD. The lowest LOD generated the highest overall trust amongst the static and adaptive LODs. For visualizations of all LODs, instantaneous trust increased and then stabilized after a series of interactions. However, the rate of change and plateau for trust varied with LODs and modes between static and adaptive. The lowest, middle, and adaptive LODs followed a sigmoid curve, while the high LOD followed a linear one. Among the static LODs, the lowest LOD exhibits the highest growth rate and plateau in trust. The middle LOD developed trust the slowest and reached the lowest plateau. The high LOD showed a linear growth rate until a level similar to that of the lowest LOD. Adaptive LOD earned the trust of the participants at a very similar speed and plateau as the lowest LOD. Taking these results together, more details about autonomy are effective for expediting the process of building trust, as long as the amount of information is carefully managed to prevent overloading participants' information processing. Further, varying quantities of information in adaptive mode could yield very similar growth and plateau in trust, helping humans to deal with either the minimum or maximum amount of information. This adaptive approach could prevent situations where comprehension is hindered due to insufficient information or where users are potentially overloaded by details. Adapting LODs to instantaneous trust presents a promising technique for managing information exchange that can promote the efficiency of communication for building trust. The contribution of this research to literature is two-fold. The first study provides the first empirical evidence indicating that the impact of LODs on transparency and trust is not linear, which has not been explicitly demonstrated in prior studies about HAT. The impact of LOD on transparency is more sensitive than trust, calling for a more defined and consistent use of the term or concept - "transparency" and a deeper investigation into the relationships between trust and transparency. The second study presents the first examination of how static and dynamic LODs can influence the development of trust toward autonomy. The algorithm for adapting LOD for the adaptive visualization based on user trust is novel, and adaptive LODs in visualization could switch between detailed and abstract information to influence trust without always transmitting all the details about autonomy. Visualizations with different LODs in both static and adaptive modes present their own set of benefits and drawbacks, resulting in trade-offs concerning the speed of promoting trust and information quantity transmitted during communication. These findings indicate that LOD is an important factor for designing and analyzing visualization for transparency and trust in HAT. / Doctor of Philosophy / The collaboration between human and autonomous agents in search and rescue (SAR) missions aims to improve the success rate and speed of finding the lost person. In these missions, a human supervisor may coordinate with autonomous agents responsible for estimating lost person behavior, path planning, and unmanned aerial vehicles. The human SAR professional may rely on information from the autonomous agents to reinforce the search plan and make crucial decisions. Balancing the amount of information provided by the autonomous agents to the SAR professionals is critical, as insufficient information can hinder trust, leading to manual intervention, and excessive information can cause information overload, reducing efficiency. Both cases can result in human distrust of autonomy. Effective visualization of information can help study and improve the transmission of information between humans and autonomous agents. This approach can reduce unnecessary information in communication, thus conserving communication resources without sacrificing trust. This dissertation investigates how visualization design at the proper aggregation of details about autonomy, also referred to as level of detail (LOD), influences perceived understanding of the autonomous agents (i.e., transparency), trust, and ultimately, the effectiveness of human autonomy teaming (HAT) for wilderness SAR. A simulation platform was built for proof-of-concept, and two studies were conducted recruiting human participants to use the platform for completing simulated SAR tasks supported by visualizations at different LODs about autonomy. Study 1 results showed that transparency ratings increased with more details about autonomy up to a point and then declined with the most details (i.e., lowest LOD). Trust, workload, and performance also did not linearly improve with more details about autonomy. The non-linear relationships of LODs with transparency, trust, workload, and performance, confirmed the phenomenon of the transparency paradox, which refers to the disclosure of excessive information about autonomy may hinder transparency and subsequent performance. Study 2 results also illustrated that when visualization with LOD adapted to instant trust, the speed of building trust and the plateau of trust on autonomy can achieve the same level as the visualization provided with the most details, which performed the best in building trust. This adaptive approach minimized the amount of information displayed relative to the visualization, constantly presenting the most information, potentially easing the burden of communication. Taken together, this research highlights that the amount of information about autonomy to display must be considered carefully for both research and practice. Further, this dissertation advances the visualization design by illustrating that visualization adapting LODs based on trust is effective at building trust in a manner that minimizes the amount of information presented to the user.