Objectives: Among different factors, diet patterns seem to be related to depression. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between the consumption of fruits and/or vegetables and depressive symptoms. Methodology/Principal findings: A secondary data analysis was conducted using information from a population-based survey from 25 regions from Peru. The outcome was the presence of depressive symptoms according to the Patient Health Questionnaire (cutoff 15 to define major depressive syndrome); whereas the exposure was the self-reported consumption of fruits and/or vegetables (in tertiles and using WHO recommendation 5 servings/day). The association of interest was evaluated using Poisson regression models controlling for the complex-sample survey design and potential confounders. Data from 25,901 participants were analyzed, mean age 44.2 (SD: 17.7) and 13,944 (54.0%) women. Only 910 (3.8%; 95%CI: 3.5%–4.2%) individuals reported consuming 5 servings of fruits and/or vegetables/day; whereas 819 (2.8%; 95%CI: 2.5%–3.1%) had depressive symptoms. Those in the lowest tertile of fruits and/or vegetables consumption had greater prevalence of depressive symptoms (PR = 1.88; 95% CI: 1.39–2.55) than those in the highest tertile. This association was stronger with fruits (PR = 1.92; 95%CI: 1.46–2.53) than vegetables (PR = 1.42; 95%CI: 1.05–1.93) alone. Conclusions: An inverse relationship between consumption of fruits and/or vegetables and depressive symptoms is reported. Less than 5% of subjects reported consuming the amount of fruits and vegetables recommended by the WHO. There is a need to implement strategies to promote better diet patterns with potential impact on mental health. © 2017 Wolniczak et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD (Education) / Deficit models dominate current research on academic retention and success in South African higher education and internationally. Most studies focus on students who are at risk of exiting higher education prematurely or those who fail academically because of their socio-economic conditions. Dropout and failure in existing research is often correlated to class and lack of access to financial resources. The prevailing philosophy based on needs assessment, deficit intervention and problem-solving does not sufficiently facilitate the academic success of diverse learners. Yet, surveys in most countries show that addressing weakness does not necessarily help people improve in their performance more than will highlighting their strengths (Hodges & Clifton, 2004). In contrast, this study adopts a strength-based approach, drawing largely on ‘ecological’ perspectives which recognize the importance of people’s surroundings and the multifaceted variables constantly at play, impacting the lives of students throughout the world. A strength-based model is posited as a pragmatic approach to pedagogy in the 21st century. This perspective recognizes the resilience of individuals and focuses on potential, strengths, interests, abilities, determination and capabilities rather than limits. This study accepts that there are persistent challenges to widening participation in South African universities, and leakages in the education pipeline continue with little improvement in graduation rates. However, there are numerous undocumented examples of academically successful students from working-class backgrounds whose academic attainment is not accounted for. Empirical data is required to establish the relationship between academic success and the resilience of undergraduate sponsored students from working class backgrounds. The case study examines factors that influence the academic attainment of undergraduate sponsored students and the institutional practices that enhance their performance at the University of the Western Cape. Factors motivating sponsored students from poor communities to succeed were explored. Furthermore, institutional influences that are relevant to, and inform students’ academic attainment are investigated. The study utilized a variety of data including relevant institutional documents, interviews with sponsored students and secondary data sourced from the Institutional Quality Assurance and Planning department. Findings of the study show that affordability through funding for equitable access to higher education is a motivating factor in academic attainment for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Also, participants in this study attributed their success to nurtured resilience across the institution, and the supportive relationships established through structured intervention programmes in and out of class. It is important to note, contrary to findings in other studies, that low socio economic background was more of a motivational factor and being resourceful for social mobility. This study adds to the limited understanding of the academic attainment of students from poor backgrounds who succeed against all odds. This provides direction to universities for adopting different approaches and offers insights for the University of the Western Cape into the experiences of its graduates. Based on the findings, the study highlights recommendations and opportunities for future investigation. / Ngalo-Morrison, L. (2017). Factors influencing the academic attainment of undergraduate sponsored students at the University of the Western Cape: A strength-based approach. PhD thesis. University of the Western Cape

Magister Educationis (Adult Learning and Global Change) - MEd(AL) / This study examines the relationship between educational attainment and employment advancement among marginalized people in Namibia. It attempts to identify the situational, institutional and dispositional barriers that have stifled the educational progress of OvaHimba and OvaZemba people based in the Kunene region and how these have limited their access to formal employment opportunities and/or employment advancement. Furthermore, it explores the potential of Adult Education to improve the formal educational qualifications of the OvaHimba and OvaZemba adults. Namibia is often lauded as an example of a country which has successfully negotiated the perils of post-independent statehood to take its place as a model citizen in the community of democratic nations. Blessed with relative stability, an abundance of natural resources, and a liberal constitution, Namibia appears to be ideally placed to provide all its citizens with a decent life consisting of access to quality education, healthcare and economic opportunities. Despite this, Namibia education has failed it adult population because of numerous factors. This study identify these factors.

ABSTRACT First-generation college students earn college degrees in the United States at much lower rates when compared to non-first-generation college students. These students frequently face different challenges accessing and completing college degrees than those encountered by their peers with college-educated parents. A key challenge for institutions of higher education (IHE) is to develop effective policies, programs, and resources that support college completion among first generation college students. First-generation students are far from a homogenous group. Rather, they exist on a spectrum of familial experiences with higher education. For instance, important differences may exist between students who have a parent who did not complete high school and those that have some college, or even postsecondary graduate education experience. Students’ familiarity with higher education institutions and processes, as well as their social networks and family resources greatly influences first-generation college students’ success in college. Yet, typically, first-generation college students are broadly defined as students whose parents did not earn a college degree. This definition fails to acknowledge potentially meaningful differences in student backgrounds. Moving forward, developing definitions for first-generation college students that more clearly describe their parents’ educational backgrounds holds promise for improving higher education institutions’ abilities to better align their support efforts with student needs. This study takes first steps to explore the application of alternative ways of defining first-generation college students, as well as understanding how IHEs currently identify first-generation college students at the point of admissions and track students once they matriculate. Specifically, in this dissertation I developed a typology of possible definitions for identifying first-generation college students. Subsequently, I conducted a national survey of public, four-year, baccalaureate degree-granting IHEs where I applied this typology to better understand institutional policies and practices for identifying and tracking first-generation college students. The study’s findings show that IHEs tend to adopt one of two general definitions for first-generation college student. The first definition does not take into account whether or not students’ parents participated in higher education, while the second lumps together students with and without parents with any exposure to college, but without a college degree. The processes and IHE administrative offices used to track first-generation college students from matriculation to graduation is institutional specific and not uniform across IHEs. The analysis shows that many IHEs are trying to identify and support first-generation college students. However, differences in definitions used by institutions poses challenges for the field, at large, in its efforts to understand the needs of this group of students, as well as makes it difficult for institutions to align supports and services with student needs. Taken together, this exploratory study raises important questions for policymakers and educational leaders who are interested in expanding college access and success for first-generation college students.

Organisations experience increased social, political and economic pressure that is evident in the increased pressure that stakeholders place on organisations. Organisations increasingly realise that stakeholders’ values and objectives need to be incorporated into organisational strategy as well as the day-to-day management of the organisation. Organisational success and survival consequently depends on the organisation’s network of relationships, which provide the organisation with otherwise inaccessible resources and a competitive advantage. Organisational relationships offer the best solution towards illustrating the value of public relations and communication in the organisation. These relationships enable the organisation to attain its long- and short-term goals. Communication is a key influencer of the success of these relationships and communication managers are consequently better adept to manage these relationships. The relationship perspective of communication posits that public relations and communication managers should act in a boundary spanning role by balancing the interests of companies and stakeholders through effective relationship management. A shift has consequently occurred from purely communication management towards building mutually beneficial relationships between an organisation and its key stakeholders. There has also been an increased recognition of the need for strategically managed communication programs that can effectively contribute to organisational success. Strategic communication assists an organisation to adapt to its stakeholder environment by feeding into the organisation’s strategy formulation process intelligence with regards to strategic stakeholders, which, in turn, assists in building mutually beneficial relationships with these stakeholders. Communication managers’ efforts towards the effective management of organisational relationships has been hampered by the lack of current literature on organisational relationships, a lack of knowledge regarding the factors that influence these relationships, as well as the lack of a reliable and quantifiable definition of organisational relationships. Knowledge on these key areas could enable communication managers to manage these relationships effectively through strategic communication that is characterised by open and two-way communication. This study aimed to determine the connection between organisational relationships and organisational success by investigating the relationship between organisational alliances (as a specific form of organisational relationship) and goal attainment. The three-stage model of organisational relationships proposed by Grunig and Huang (2000:34) was applied to organisational alliances in order to determine this relationship, as well as to determine the influence of key constructs like type of industry, type of alliance, duration of the alliance and the size of the organisation. The reliability of using this framework, specifically the relationship outcomes proposed by the three-stage model, was investigated. The relationship outcomes (trust, commitment, relational satisfaction and control mutuality) were positively related to perceptions of goal attainment. This implies that if trust, commitment, relational satisfaction and control mutuality increases in an organisational alliance, the perceptions of goal attainment also increase within that organisational relationship. These findings suggest that effective communication contributes to perceptions of goal attainment within organisational relationships. It offers public relations and communication practitioners a means to demonstrate the contribution of this function to organisational success. High correlations between the relationship outcomes reflected current findings on these outcomes and a factor analysis indicated that only one factor was being measured – the organisational relationship itself. The study proposed an improved measurement instrument for reliably measuring organisational relationships (Cronbach Alpha = 0.93). The type of industry, type of alliance, duration of the alliance as well as the size of the organisation did not have a significant influence on the relationship outcomes or the proposed measure of organisational relationships. This implies that the current proposed measurement instrument can be applied to numerous contexts. A general linear model was applied to goal attainment (as the dependent variable) and the relationship outcomes (as the independent variables) in order to determine the specific contribution of each relationship outcome on perceptions of goal attainment. The regression analysis indicated that control mutuality was the greatest influencer of perceptions of goal attainment within alliances. A noticeably low influence of trust was also measured. These findings were obtained through the use of an e-mail survey that obtained cross-sectional data, where 154 alliances were observed (n=154). The study contributed to present literature on organisational relationships by using Grunig and Huang’s (2000:43) three-stage model to explain the relationship between perceptions of goal attainment and the relationship outcomes in alliances within the South African context. Strategic communication management provides a solution to a key organisational issue – the organisation’s interdependence with the stakeholders in its environment and how these stakeholders can better be managed in order to more effectively contribute towards organisational success. Communication managers can demonstrate their value by effectively managing key organisational relationships like alliances by integrating these relationships into organisational strategy. These successful organisational relationships also contribute towards organisational sustainability by enabling the organisation to attain its long- and short-term goals. / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Communication Management / MCom / Unrestricted

The total size of the world population is likely to increase from its current 7 billion to 8-10 billion by 2050. This uncertainty is because of unknown future fertility and mortality trends in different parts of the world. But the young age structure of the population and the fact that in much of Africa and Western Asia, fertility is still very high makes an increase by at least one more billion almost certain. Virtually, all the increase will happen in the developing world. For the second half of the century, population stabilization and the onset of a decline are likely. In addition to the future size of the population, its distribution by age, sex, level of educational attainment and place of residence are of specific importance for studying future food security. The paper provides a detailed discussion of different relevant dimensions in population projections and an evaluation of the methods and assumptions used in current global population projections and in particular those produced by the United Nations and by IIASA.

The ability to transfer knowledge to novel contexts is one of the most important goals that our educational institutions must achieve. Motivation is one of the many factors that influence students' learning, performance, and their ability to transfer. However, not many researchers have studied the role of motivation in transfer keeping in view Eccles' Subjective task value theory. The present study explored the role of subjective values students associate with cognitive development theories they studied in an educational psychology course, in their ability to transfer knowledge learned in lecture to a novel context. Participants were 45 college students in an educational psychology course. They were asked to complete the subjective task value instrument, the fundamental knowledge test and the transfer test. Based on the literature, it is hypothesized that if the subjective value of a task has a role to play in the level of transfer that learners display, there will be a strong correlation between their scores on the subjective task value instrument and transfer test. Nevertheless, the results showed that there is no relationship between learners' value beliefs and their ability to transfer. However, the results showed a significant relationship between fundamental understanding and transfer. Future research taking the nature of instruction into account and that test the learners for transfer multiple times during a single semester would perhaps give us a much clearer picture of the determinants of the learners' failure to transfer.

In this thesis, I analyze whether nutritional intake at the time of adolescence can impact academic attainment and earnings later on in life. Millions of children in the United States are living in food insecure households and do not have access to an adequate nutritious diet. Since adolescence is a time period of intense growth and development, it is essential to meet nutritional needs at this time. Using data from the Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), I measure the nutrition of a nationally representative sample of youth in the United States through their daily food intake, and test the effects nutrition during adolescence has on future outcomes. I find a positive relationship between healthy eating and educational achievement, as well as a negative relationship between unhealthy eating and educational attainment. Nutrition has a smaller effect on earnings, but the results show that there is a minor negative relationship between healthy eating and earnings.

El problema del taller de flujo surge hace unos 60 años como una aproximación de la realidad de los procesos industriales de fabricación, más exactamente de la programación de la producción. La programación de la producción se refiere a la ordenación de las tareas productivas pendientes en una industria fabril. A pesar de que han pasado muchos años desde sus comienzos, aun hoy existe una gran diferencia entre los problemas teóricos propuestos y la realidad industrial de las empresas. Una de las diferencias más evidentes es el hecho de que al intentar resolver un problema de programación de la producción casi nunca se tiene en mente un único objetivo. Normalmente se tienen en mente varias cosas a la vez, como por ejemplo, terminar cuanto antes la producción, al mismo tiempo maximizar el uso de recursos y también cumplir con las fechas de entregas. En este contexto han surgido los problemas de taller de flujo multi-objetivo. En los últimos 20 años los problemas de taller de flujo multi-objetivo han tenido un gran empuje, acercado el desarrollo teórico a los problemas reales. En este trabajo de tesis presentaremos un recorrido por algunos de los problemas de taller de flujo multi-objetivo, partiendo desde los más básicos y yendo hacia los más complejos, y al mismo tiempo, los que reflejan mejor la realidad. Este trabajo tiene además otros objetivos. Uno de los problemas que más se ha dejado de lado en la optimización multi-objetivo es la medición y comparación correcta de los resultados. Presentaremos un recorrido por los métodos existentes para la medición de resultados multi-objetivo, señalando los problemas y ventajas de cada uno, con la finalidad de obtener una metodología válida, clara y consistente para la comparación de los resultados de problemas multi-objetivo. Para comenzar el recorrido por el taller de flujo planteamos una tarea que nunca se ha llevado a cabo hasta la fecha: la implementación y comparación experimental de 23 algoritmos multi-objetivo. Alguno de ellos propuestos para el taller de flujo multi-objetivo y otros de carácter general. Esto nos dará un importante punto de partida para conocer las metodologías existentes en la literatura parar resolver problemas multiobjetivo. Como resultado conoceremos metodologías que van desde algoritmos genéticos, pasando por la búsqueda tabú, colonias de hormigas, recocido simulado, etc. Todo este trabajo inicial nos permitirá ver las ventajas y desventajas de cada método propuesto y determinar los puntos fuertes de los mejores para, finalmente, proponer un método de resolución de problemas de taller de flujo general, eficaz y eficiente. El recorrido por distintos problemas de taller de flujo nos permitirá conocer el estado actual de la literatura y acercarnos paso a paso a los problemas que mejor representan la realidad. En cada paso realizaremos un profundo estudio del estado actual de la literatura, comparando los métodos existentes contra un método propuesto por nosotros mismos. En este aspecto partiremos del problema del taller de flujo de permutación multi-objetivo, luego ampliaremos este problema añadiéndole tiempos de cambio dependientes de la secuencia y finalmente estudiaremos el problema del taller de flujo híbrido multi-objetivo. / Minella, GG. (2014). Optimización multi-objetivo para la programación de la producción [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/37980 / TESIS

Beck Depression Inventory