In this study directors of public listed companies around Australia gave their perceptions of best practice in corporate governance. A qualitative methodology within the constructivist paradigm was used along with a questionnaire thus making it a linked study. Mechanisms to assist in demonstrating rigour in the research process were developed and implemented as part of the research. The findings presented a description of best practice in corporate governance and a definition of corporate governance. Emerging from the findings was a model of best practice that was consistent with complex adaptive systems theory. Stakeholder theory was seen to provide the mechanism for developing activities that support the best practice model.

ABSTRACT PASTORAL LEADERSHIP PRACTICES IN EVANGELICAL MULTIETHNIC CONGREGATIONS: A MULTI-CASE STUDY Raúl Martin Latoni Ramírez, Ed.D. The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2012 Chair: Dr. Hal K. Pettegrew The purpose of this study was to identify and describe the best leadership practices of pastors of selected evangelical multiethnic congregations in the United States. The study was qualitative in nature and can best be described as a multiple or collective case study with purposeful sampling. The sample consisted of 30 pastors, including 6 women and 24 men, from 6 multiethnic congregations. The churches were located in 6 different regions of the country: Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, Pacific Northwest, West, and Southwest. The denominations represented in these churches included Independent Charismatic, Vineyard, Assemblies of God, Baptist, and Independent. The researcher used a revised version of the Personal Best Questionnaire as the primary means for collecting data (Kouzes and Posner 1987). This was completed by all participants who, in addition, completed a demographic data form created by the researcher. In order to triangulate the data, the researcher also incorporated data from personal observations during visits to each of these churches and from interviews with the senior pastor at the 6 churches. The gatekeeper or designated person at each church was also asked to fill out a questionnaire to provide demographic data pertaining to the church. The responses provided by the participants in this study confirmed and correlated well with the five practices of exemplary leadership proposed by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner. The impetus for the participants' best practices came from personal conviction, perceived need, personal passion, leadership directive, and challenging the status quo. Over a third of the pastors responded to a perceived need, demonstrating that leaders do not always seek challenges; challenges seek leaders. Others initiated change in response to a perceived dissonance between personal or corporate values and current ministerial practices. Senior pastors were more likely than associate/assistant pastors to initiate change based on personal convictions. Other responses closely related to implementing change focused on pastors' behavior of developing and implementing a specific vision for their ministries. Senior pastors relied primarily on preaching and teaching to communicate their vision. Overall, respondents reported that the primary means to communicate vision and the need for change was by developing slogans and through the use of testimonies in various settings of the church. In order to build cohesiveness and promote trust in leadership, a majority of the participants reported the importance of building personal relationships with their church members. While senior pastors relied mostly on vision casting to foster collaboration in their respective ministries, associate pastors were more likely to foster collaboration through personal relationship development. Also, female pastors were twice as likely as their male counterparts to use personal words of affirmation to enhance the confidence of individuals in their abilities, thereby furthering their relationships with congregational members. One of the ways in which the participants fostered accountability was by modeling transparency, vulnerability, and honesty in communication. The researcher identified three primary spheres for modeling behavior among the participants: personal, organizational, and public. While associate pastors reported modeling behavior in one or two of these spheres, senior pastors demonstrated modeling behavior in all three spheres. KEYWORDS: Pastoral, leadership, multiethnic churches, evangelical, best leadership practices.

This thesis examines the retention of best practices by clinicians after the implementation of an integrated care pathway for patients with congestive heart failure. While the literature suggests there are many reasons why the implementation of best practices is difficult, there is little information on the sustainability of best practices once implemented.<p>Using a qualitative research design guided by Rogers theory of Diffusion of Innovations the researcher interviewed seven clinicians who participated in the implementation of the pathway. A thematic analysis revealed several themes that ran throughout participants responses. <p>While the participants indicated they see value in best practices, they also identified barriers to getting that knowledge into practice and keeping it there. A spectrum of factors, including individual autonomy, time, resources, organizational support and the organization of the system all played a role.<p>In the end, participants revealed that although small pieces of the pathway remain in practice, the pathway itself is no longer used by clinicians to manage patients with congestive heart failure.

Kabuli chickpea (<i>Cicer arietinum</i> L.) has two leaf types, the fern and unifoliate. Yield potential is limited for kabuli chickpea in Saskatchewan. It is limited by a short-season, a semi-arid environment, and end-of-season rainfall. Manipulating plant population, and choosing chickpea cultivars with the best leaf type for biomass production, radiation interception and yield for the early, middle, or late growth season, may increase chickpea yield. Therefore, the objectives of this study were: to (i) determine the relationship between leaf type and key growth parameters of six chickpea cultivars varying in leaf morphology at moderate and high plant population densities; (іі) to characterize the reaction of the fern and unifoliate leaf to altered canopy light environments. Different light environments were created by 50% defoliation at vegetative growth, first flower, and 50% shading from vegetative growth to first flower, as well as two light enrichment treatments initiated at the first flower and pod formation stages.<p> Fern leaf cultivars exhibited higher maximum light interception, seasonal cumulative intercepted radiation and a higher harvest index compared to unifoliate leaf cultivars. However, both leaf type canopies had less than 95% light interception for most of the season. The fern and unifoliate leaf type contributed to similar radiation use efficiency in three out of four location-years. In addition, fern leaf cultivars produced significantly higher seed yield than cultivars with unifoliate leaves.<p>Plant density influenced growth parameters. For example, the 45 plants m-2 treatment had a higher harvest index than the 85 plants m-2 treatment, in two location-years, while both population treatments were similar in the other two location-years. Yield of chickpea was increased by higher plant population in only one location-year, but was not significantly affected by plant population in the other location-years. The effect of canopy light environment manipulation on chickpea yield depended on the stages of plant development when they were applied. Defoliation at vegetative growth and first flower had no effect on yield. However, plants responded significantly to the 50% shade treatment; the crop growth rate, harvest index and yield were less in the shaded treatment compared to the control. Shading also increased plant height. Light enrichment treatments increased the yield. However, the degree of yield increase was greater when light enrichment occurred at first flower, than at the later stage of pod formation. These results highlighted the importance of the amount of irradiance during the flowering stage. It was concluded that chickpea breeders should select lines with fern leaves for improved radiation interception when breeding cultivars for semiarid short-season environments such as in Saskatchewan. Management and breeding practices should ensure that the crop can make efficient use of the solar radiation at flowering to maximize yield. Improvement at the canopy and subsequent yield level is yet to be made in Saskatchewan environments by increased light interception, increased growth before flowering, and increased and stable harvest index.

The monitoring of nitrate mass load through the unsaturated zone below agricultural land was proposed as a novel technique to assess the effect of agricultural best management practices (BMPs). The objectives of the study were to: develop field techniques and apply computational models for the quantification of unsaturated zone nitrate mass flux; scale the point mass flux results to a nitrate mass load across an agricultural parcel; and assess the resulting nitrate mass load measurements as indicators to evaluate the effect of a BMP. At several locations across the study site, groundwater quality and profiles of soil water content and temperature were regularly monitored, and several rounds of geologic cores were collected for analysis of bulk soil nitrate and an applied bromide tracer. The field data were applied in several analytical techniques for estimating recharge, and in two unsaturated zone numerical models used to refine the recharge estimates. The recharge rate at each measurement location was then combined with unsaturated zone nitrate data to quantify nitrate mass flux. Upscaling of the flux values to field-scale mass load was based mainly on topography, geology and field observations. The calculation of stored nitrate mass in the shallow subsurface showed some correlation to changes in surface nitrogen application, with the greatest decreases in stored mass observed at locations underlain by sand where there was a switch to a grass crop. In contrast, the calculation of nitrate mass load suggested that the post-BMP value (4.1 t NO3-N/yr) was greater than the pre-BMP value (2.2 t NO3-N/yr). However, the calculation of nitrate mass load was limited by several factors, including a lack of nitrate concentration data from the deep unsaturated zone and an above-average annual precipitation rate; as a result, the findings suggesting an increase in nitrate mass load in response to decreasing nutrient inputs should be interpreted with caution. Continued monitoring of nitrate mass load and stored nitrate mass in the unsaturated zone is recommended to determine whether further benefits from the BMPs are observed as the measurement period lengthens and the unsaturated zone is progressively flushed.

In this paper I will argue that the controversial process of inferring to the best explanation (IBE) can be made more coherent if its formulation recognizes and includes a significant inductive component. To do so, I will examine the relationship between Harman’s, Lipton’s, and Fumerton’s positions on IBE, settling ultimately upon a conception that categorically rejects Harman’s account while appropriating potions of both Lipton’s and Fumerton’s accounts. The resulting formulation will be called inductive-IBE, and I will argue that this formulation more accurately describes the inferential practices employed in scientific inquiry. The upshot of my argument, that IBE contains a significant inductive component, will be that any conclusion born from such types of inductive inference must be, at best, likely, and not a necessity. And, although previous accounts of IBE have accepted the defeasibility of IBE, I will argue that inductive-IBE is more descriptive because it tells us why this fallibility exists. That is, although the Liptonian conception of IBE acknowledges that IBE is fallible, my account specifically addresses this characteristic and, thus, is more descriptive and informative in this regard. I will use inductive-IBE to argue, contra van Fraassen, that IBE can be a legitimate form of inference that leads science to true theories and real entities.

Traditional algorithms for hidden Markov model decoding seek to maximize either the probability of a state path or the number of positions of a sequence assigned to the correct state. These algorithms provide only a single answer and in practice do not produce good results. The most mathematically sound of these algorithms is the Viterbi algorithm, which returns the state path that has the highest probability of generating a given sequence. Here, we explore an extension to this algorithm that allows us to find the k paths of highest probabilities. The naive implementation of k best Viterbi paths is highly space-inefficient, so we adapt recent work on the Viterbi algorithm for a single path to this domain. Out algorithm uses much less memory than the naive approach. We then investigate the usefulness of the k best Viterbi paths on the example of transmembrane protein topology prediction. For membrane proteins, even simple path combination algorithms give good explanations, and if we look at the paths we are combining, we can give a sense of confidence in the explanation as well. For proteins with two topologies, the k best paths can give insight into both correct explanations of a sequence, a feature lacking from traditional algorithms in this domain.

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The monitoring of nitrate mass load through the unsaturated zone below agricultural land was proposed as a novel technique to assess the effect of agricultural best management practices (BMPs). The objectives of the study were to: develop field techniques and apply computational models for the quantification of unsaturated zone nitrate mass flux; scale the point mass flux results to a nitrate mass load across an agricultural parcel; and assess the resulting nitrate mass load measurements as indicators to evaluate the effect of a BMP. At several locations across the study site, groundwater quality and profiles of soil water content and temperature were regularly monitored, and several rounds of geologic cores were collected for analysis of bulk soil nitrate and an applied bromide tracer. The field data were applied in several analytical techniques for estimating recharge, and in two unsaturated zone numerical models used to refine the recharge estimates. The recharge rate at each measurement location was then combined with unsaturated zone nitrate data to quantify nitrate mass flux. Upscaling of the flux values to field-scale mass load was based mainly on topography, geology and field observations. The calculation of stored nitrate mass in the shallow subsurface showed some correlation to changes in surface nitrogen application, with the greatest decreases in stored mass observed at locations underlain by sand where there was a switch to a grass crop. In contrast, the calculation of nitrate mass load suggested that the post-BMP value (4.1 t NO3-N/yr) was greater than the pre-BMP value (2.2 t NO3-N/yr). However, the calculation of nitrate mass load was limited by several factors, including a lack of nitrate concentration data from the deep unsaturated zone and an above-average annual precipitation rate; as a result, the findings suggesting an increase in nitrate mass load in response to decreasing nutrient inputs should be interpreted with caution. Continued monitoring of nitrate mass load and stored nitrate mass in the unsaturated zone is recommended to determine whether further benefits from the BMPs are observed as the measurement period lengthens and the unsaturated zone is progressively flushed.

In this paper I will argue that the controversial process of inferring to the best explanation (IBE) can be made more coherent if its formulation recognizes and includes a significant inductive component. To do so, I will examine the relationship between Harman’s, Lipton’s, and Fumerton’s positions on IBE, settling ultimately upon a conception that categorically rejects Harman’s account while appropriating potions of both Lipton’s and Fumerton’s accounts. The resulting formulation will be called inductive-IBE, and I will argue that this formulation more accurately describes the inferential practices employed in scientific inquiry. The upshot of my argument, that IBE contains a significant inductive component, will be that any conclusion born from such types of inductive inference must be, at best, likely, and not a necessity. And, although previous accounts of IBE have accepted the defeasibility of IBE, I will argue that inductive-IBE is more descriptive because it tells us why this fallibility exists. That is, although the Liptonian conception of IBE acknowledges that IBE is fallible, my account specifically addresses this characteristic and, thus, is more descriptive and informative in this regard. I will use inductive-IBE to argue, contra van Fraassen, that IBE can be a legitimate form of inference that leads science to true theories and real entities.