The purpose of the study was to determine whether business simulations helped further systems thinking in individuals. To establish whether improved systems thinking may be a result of participating in business simulation programs, participants needed to be separated from their day-to-day reality and confronted with managing their organisations in a virtual world. The virtual world in which participants needed to immerse themselves was a customised business simulation designed to capture some of the critical elements of their organisation in a simplified virtual micro-world. This new world allowed participants to engage with and experiment with their organisations in a risk free environment and from a holistic systems perspective. Experimental research was conducted to determine whether it may be possible that individuals participating in these business simulation programs experience a shift in mental models towards systems thinking. The feedback received from participants showed high levels of agreement with respect to the fact that the simulation tools allowed them to engage with the virtual model from a systems perspective. Approximately a third of all participants reported that their most significant insight during the simulation program was in some way related to their new way of seeing and understanding the system of which they are part. The study concludes with the notion that organisations should further encourage systems thinking, which will help them deal with the complexity of the environment in which we operate on a day-to-day basis. Furthermore, improved systems thinking may help us overcome some significant barriers to learning and thereby improve our capabilities in respect to dealing with change. Further research is needed to better qualify the specific skill sets necessary for improved systems thinking. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

This work considers the value of applying design methods and other techniques in the implementation of electronic public services. This relates specifically to the use of Information Society Technology (IST) and related topics, for example systems analysis, change management and process reengineering specifically within the British local government sector. This is commonly referred to by the shorthand expression 'e-Government'.The paper examines the motivation behind methods - their design and application, a summary of their development over the past few decades, and an assessment of e-Government centric techniques. This involves a discussion of some of those techniques through a case study and fieldwork concerned with methods applied by a specific group of public agencies, the Metropolitan Borough Councils. E-government forms a complex and inter-organisational innovation, and the work develops an evaluation of its growth since the mid to late 1990's. There is an exploration of the experiences of a variety of methods and their application in light of new and divergent ways of working in the public sector. More recent techniques supportive of its diffusion are introduced, and the thesis takes into account institutional, technological and organisational factors within the public sector specifically and how the concept and practicality of methods are being applied. The future direction and nature of methods within this field are key considerations and form the core of the conclusions of the work.

The aim of the study was to describe the therapist's lived experience of identifying, containing and processing the feelings, thoughts or fantasies evoked in him by the patient's projective identifications. A question which would elicit the experience of this phenomenon was formulated by examining case histories, and modified through the use of individual pilot studies. Fifteen experienced, psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapists were interviewed. The eight psychologically richest accounts were chosen for the study. Using the empirical phenomenological method, the four protocols that most clearly reflected the phenomenon were analysed in detail, while the remaining four were used to clarify areas of uncertainty. Projective identification is conceptualised as the process whereby the patient coerces the therapist to embody an un-appropriated aspect of his (patient's) world. The context of processing a patient's projective identification was discovered to be such that the therapist finds himself coerced to embody an incongruent, unfamiliar, confusing and inauthentic state of being which is consonant with the patient's perception of him. The discomfort of the experience leads the therapist to bring to awareness and thematise his feeling-state. He alternates between avoiding this state of being, which results in conf1ict with the patient and the therapist's own values, and appropriating it, which feels inauthentic. The therapist moves from a position of trying to understand the experience in relation to his own world, to the realisation that it is co-determined by the patient. From a position of reflective distance he re-appropriates aspects of his world that were closed to him while under the influence of the patient, in addition to appropriating previously unowned aspects. The therapist dialogues these appropriations with the invoked feelings, allowing him to differentiate those aspects of his feeling-state which are authentically his from those which are unowned aspects of the patient's aspects of his world that were closed to him while under the influence of the patient, in addition to appropriating previously unowned aspects. The therapist dialogues these appropriations with the invoked feelings, allowing him to differentiate those aspects of his feeling-state which are authentically his from those which are unowned aspects of the patient's world that he has been forced to embody. Through this process the therapist clarifies and gives meaning to his feelings. The therapist fee1s re1ieved and lighter, when in the service of the therapy, he temporarily gives himself over to the patient's experience of him, without feeling drawn to either disowning or appropriating it, while simultaneously remaining open to his own authentic reality. These findings were dialogued with the literature on projective identification.

Genes, the fundamental building blocks of life, act together (often through their derived proteins) in modules such as protein complexes and molecular pathways to achieve a cellular function such as DNA repair and cellular transport. A current emphasis in genomics research is to identify gene modules from gene profiles, which are measurements (such as a mutant phenotype or an expression level), associated with the individual genes under conditions of interest; genes in modules often have similar gene profiles. Clustering groups of genes with similar profiles can hence deliver candidate gene modules. Pairwise similarity measures derived from these profiles are used as input to the popular hierarchical agglomerative clustering algorithms; however, these algorithms offer little guidance on how to choose candidate modules and how to improve a clustering as new data becomes available. As an alternative, there are methods based on thresholding the similarity values to obtain a graph; such a graph can be analyzed through (probabilistic) methods developed in the social sciences. However, thresholding the data discards valuable information and choosing the threshold is difficult. Extending binary relational analysis, we exploit ranked relational data as the basis for two distinct approaches for identifying modules from genomic data, both based on the theory of random graph processes. We propose probabilistic models for ranked relational data that allow candidate modules to be accompanied by objective confidence scores and that permit an elegant integration of external information on gene-gene relationships. We first followed theoretical work by Ling to objectively select exceptionally isolated groups as candidate gene modules. Secondly, inspired by stochastic block models used in the social sciences, we construct a novel model for ranked relational data, where all genes have hidden module parameters which govern the strength of all gene-gene relationships. Adapting a classical likelihood often used for the analysis of horse races, clustering is performed by estimating the module parameters using standard Bayesian methods. The method allows the incorporation of prior information on gene-gene relationships; the utility of using prior information in the form of protein-protein interaction data in clustering of yeast mutant phenotype profiles is demonstrated. / Science, Faculty of / Statistics, Department of / Graduate

The aim of this study is to create a psychobiography of Vincent Van Gogh who was born in 1853 and died 1890. To Van Gogh art was not merely a means for an income, he converted all his aspirations and anguish into his art works. In doing so his art became the first example of a truly personal art, to him art was a deeply lived means of spiritual salvation, which he used as a means to transform himself. It was well known that Van Gogh was unstable and felt misunderstood in life, often asking “What is the use?” . He had a method of fusing what he saw in the world, and what he personally felt, into works of art that were revelations of himself. Van Gogh lived a lonely life, although for the last seventeen years of his life he wrote to his brother, Theo, almost daily. These letters give much insight to the thoughts and inner world of a much misunderstood individual. Most of these letters have been preserved and much else has been written about Van Gogh’s life and art. In our modern day he is deemed one of the most famous artists, yet in his lifetime he only sold one painting. This psychobiography employs a qualitative psychobiographical research method, which aims to describe Van Gogh’s psychological development in terms of Erik Erikson’s psychosocial developmental stages. Van Gogh was chosen as the research subject because of personal interest, his value as a famous artist, and because of the unique way in which he saw and related to the world.

No description available.

The effects of transition metal ions as components of the mobile phase on the retentions in HPLC of 2-aminophenol and selected α-diketones were studied on both ODS-silica and porous polymer columns. The compounds were used as model compounds in an investigation which set out to derive a detailed understanding of the mechanisms Involved when metal ions are used to selectively modify the retention of compounds capable of interaction. This technique, which has parallels with ion-pair chromatography, provides another method by which the conditions of a separation may be altered and the selectivity adjusted to give better resolution.

Fluorigenic aromatic molecules have found wide application in Fluorescence Spectroscopy. Commercially available fluorigenic reagents have been used to detect amines, amino acids, peptides and proteins. Orthophthalaldehyde (OPA) is an aromatic dialdehyde which is specific for a primary amino group. Three polyaromatic dialdehyde molecules similar to this compound have been synthesised and investigated for their analytical applications. They are: (1) naphthalene-2,3- dicarboxaldehyde (NDA), (2) 1-phenylnaphthalene-2, 3- dicarboxaldehyde (0NDA) and (3) anthracene-2,3- dicarboxaldehyde (ADA).

No description available.

This thesis analyses the conditions of the James Bay Cree using the Dependency Theory. The first chapter consists of a discussion surrounding the theory. This is followed by a look at how the Cree became a periphery through the years. The third chapter highlights the effects of dependency on the mental and physical health of First Nations Citizens across the country. The James Bay Hydroelectric Project is then given as an example of how the centre exploits the peripheries. Finally the possible solutions to the problem of dependency are discussed in the conclusion.