Organisational excellence stems from the dedicated commitment of peoplewho are motivated to work together and share similar values and visions about their results of their efforts. Organisational communication is linked to managerial effectiveness, the integration of work units across organisational levels and job communication satisfaction. The Department of Social Development can review their levels of communication and the interpersonal relationship in a bid to address their quality of productivity, satisfaction of employees, communication flow, and protocol and to bring changes in the life of the organisation. The success of an organisation is based on the communication levels, flow of information and how people interact. Communication systems within organisations, both human and technological, are responsible for creatively solving increasingly complex problems. The researcher has observed that lack of communication hampers service delivery and production in the Department of Social Development. The study focuses on the perceptions and experiences of employees about the nature of communication at the Department of Social Development in the North RandRegion. A qualitative research approach that was exploratory in nature was followed. The main aim of the study was to determine how the existing communication protocol and communication channels are utilised in the Department of Social Development. Asemi-structured interview schedule and questionnaire were used as research instruments. The methods of data collection were face-toface interviews with 10 participants and questionnaires consisting onlyof open-ended questions that were completed by eight individual respondents. The population for the study was employees of the Department of Social Development in the North Rand Region. The sample represented employees from top management, middle management, line management and junior staff who have been in the employment of the Department of Social Development for more than six months. The study revealed that there is a lack of understanding of relationship roles and that employees communicate without understanding and sometimes they do not seek clarity. All parties involved must be proactive, clear messages should be communicated to all employees, employees have first to seek understanding, allow questions and provide clarity and attempt to understand the relationship role between manager andsubordinate. However, misunderstanding and misinterpretation were identified as major contributing factors to effective communication.

Thesis (M.S.E.C.E.)--University of Delaware, 2009. / Principal faculty advisor: Leonard J. Cimini, Jr., Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engineering. Includes bibliographical references.

Internal communication is pivotal for the effectiveness of company procedures and ultimately the success of the company. Understanding more about the communicative needs of different employee groups is therefore important in order to convey a message in a satisfying manner to those employees. This explorative study is investigating communication preferences from a stakeholder perspective to find out what influences the appropriateness of using different communication channels when transmitting information to different stakeholder groups. Interviews with employees at different levels and functions at PostNord were conducted and analysed. We conclude that the top level stakeholder prefers face-to-face communication due to complex topics being discussed with a high need for feedback. The stakeholder at the middle organisational level preferred e-mail due to being constantly interrupted and therefore need to access information at later times. The bottom level consisted of two stakeholder groups that had high degree, respectively low degree of customer interaction. They both preferred face-to-face, for reasons that had grounds in strict working schedules and work tasks - they were not given time to take in information properly in any other way than scheduled meetings, and the stakeholder with low customer interaction mostly worked alone which made this stakeholder value meetings with other colleagues.

A dissertation submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of D. Litt in Communication Science at the University of Zululand, 2007. / The main task of Chief Superintendents of Education Management (CSEMs) and Superintendents of Education Management (SEMs) and principals is to achieve the goals of the Education Department. They direct the activities and performance of their supervisees. In pursuing this, a leadership relationship and interaction between the supervisors and his supervisees is necessary. These leaders however, perform two significant roles; that of leading and that of being led. The leadership of these leaders is influenced /affected by the relationship the leader has with his supervisor to perform optimally or rninimally. For these managers in Education to lead effectively, they need to be well and timeously informed about matters. The SEMs need to be kept abreast of education related issues because of the type of work they do. It ranges from communicating departmental goals and objectives, consultation with stakeholders, chairing workshops and meetings of principals, parents and School Governing Bodies. They also serve on recruitment panels, among many other functions. Various forms of communication styles systems and communication strategies are viewed as significantly crucial in the work of the SEM. The SEM however relies on senior management for information. Latest and revised policies come to the SEM via the line function. Reaching the set destination depends on the leadership styles of the supervisors, whether they are traditional or transformational leaders. The SEM likewise, disseminates the information to the principals of schools. They in turn do the same to their supervisees at school and to School Governing Bodies, where necessary. The leadership styles of the SEMs and principals also affect information dissemination either positively or negatively. The results of the study points out that communication channels are not always adhered to in the Department of Education. Information does not reach the SEMs on time. E-communication is still minimally used in the Department of Education.

Master of Science / Department of Journalism and Mass Communications / Barbara DeSanto / This is an exploratory study looking at the communication channels used in the relationship between rural grocers and rural community members in four Kansas communities. The study is a continuation of research and efforts done by K-State’s Rural Grocery Initiative to help the sustainability of rural grocery stores. This study is looked at through the theoretical lens of uses and gratifications because of the identification of communication channels that satisfy users’ wants and needs. The study is qualitative, using individual interviews to gather data from rural grocers and rural community members. Eight communication channels are identified by the grocers and community members: onsite of grocery store, newspaper (published in a nearby community), mail, radio, website, word-of-mouth, email, and Facebook. The eight communication channels discussed in the study are identified as being beneficial, used, or both by rural grocers and rural community members. The information provided from the study offers suggestions for rural grocers to better reach community members to increase business, and thus increase sustainability in the community.

Det svenska skolväsendet har sedan 2000-talet fått övergripande stöd från regeringen för att utveckla den digitaliserade undervisningsformen. Trots detta har upprepande årsrapporter kring IT-användning i skolan visat på brister inom användarkunskap och IT-kompetens utvecklingsmöjligheter. Syftet med denna studie är att kartlägga hur digitala lärplattformar används och varför den digitala kommunikationen mellan lärare och elever inte uppnått förväntade resultat. Följande forskningsfrågor har varit relevanta i detta sammanhang: Hur ser användandet av lärplattformar på gymnasieskolan ut idag? Varför har digitalisering ännu inte slagit igenom som ett effektivt verktyg i undervisningen? Studien är baserad på en empirisk undersökning där data insamlats från intervjuer med rektorer och lärare från sex gymnasieskolor i Gävle och Uppsala. Ett slumpmässigt urval av 80 elever har även svarat på en enkät med mål att representera den generella inställningen till skolans digitala kommunikationssystem för delning av undervisnings-och studiematerial. Vidare har en litteraturgenomgång utförts där problemområden och brister inom forskningsområdet presenteras. Dels är informationen hämtad från forskare inom kommunikation och teknologi, men även från Skolverket och Skolinspektionen. Resultatet visar på att skolans lärplattformar används som verktyg för informationsöverföring där information överförs i vertikal riktning från lärare till elever. I nuläget används lärplattformar främst på grund av krav från ledningen och inte som en kanal för dubbelriktad kommunikation, där lärare och elever kan diskutera lösningar på uppgifter och problem, få feedback samt tips och råd. Resultatet påvisar även att lärare upplever tekniska brister i delar av lärplattformen och att de saknar systematiska arbetsrutiner för effektiv användning. Detta utgör ett hinder som begränsar kommunikationens effektivitet med avseende till kunskapsutveckling genom lärplattformer. / The Swedish school system has since the 2000s, received overall support from the government to develop digitized teaching methods. Despite this, repetitive annual reports on IT usage in schools revealed shortcomings in user knowledge and development of IT-skills. The purpose of this study is to identify how digital learning platforms are used and why digitized communication between teachers and students in high schools have not achieved the expected results. The following research questions were relevant in the study: How is the use of learning platforms in secondary schools today? Why has the digitization not yet been seen as an effective tool in teaching? The study is based on empirical data, where data is collected from interviews with principals and teachers from six different high schools in Gävle and Uppsala. A random sample of 80 students also completed a questionnaire with the aim to represent the general attitude to the school’s digital communications system for sharing of learning material. Furthermore, a literature review helped to evaluate problem areas and gaps in the research presented. The results show that the schools’ learning platforms are used as tools for information sharing, where the information is transferred in a vertical direction from teachers to students. Today the teaching platform is mainly used due to demands from the school management, and not as a channel for bidirectional communication, where teachers and students can discuss solutions to the tasks and problems, or to get feedback and advice. The result also shows that teachers are experiencing technical defects in parts of the learning platform and that lack of systematic work procedures prevent it from effective use. This is a barrier that limits the effectiveness of communication with regard to the development of knowledge through learning platforms.

Submitted by PPG Engenharia El?trica (engenharia.pg.eletrica@pucrs.br) on 2018-04-23T19:26:15Z No. of bitstreams: 1 KAYOL_SOARES_MAYER_DIS.pdf: 19305237 bytes, checksum: 0750bd8f9d1820565918888661bc5acb (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Sheila Dias (sheila.dias@pucrs.br) on 2018-05-04T12:47:14Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 KAYOL_SOARES_MAYER_DIS.pdf: 19305237 bytes, checksum: 0750bd8f9d1820565918888661bc5acb (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-05-04T13:13:01Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 KAYOL_SOARES_MAYER_DIS.pdf: 19305237 bytes, checksum: 0750bd8f9d1820565918888661bc5acb (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-03-28 / Coordena??o de Aperfei?oamento de Pessoal de N?vel Superior - CAPES / Em sistemas de comunica??o digital sem fio, o sinal transmitido pode ser afetado por v?rias fontes de distor??o, sendo as mais significantes o ru?do gaussiano branco aditivo (AWGN), multipercurso e efeito Doppler. Em ambientes onde a resposta de impulso do canal de comunica??o ? vari?vel no tempo, como em comunica??es m?veis, a distor??o por multipercurso ? din?mica. Juntamente com o efeito Doppler, o multipercurso din?mico pode at? mesmo eventualmente interromper completamente o link de comunica??o sem fio. Para minimizar este problema, equalizadores de canais autodidatas s?o usados para mitigar os efeitos de multipercurso e Doppler. Neste contexto, esta disserta??o prop?e um novo equalizador de canal autodidata (blind), baseado no algoritmo de m?dulo constante modificado n?o linear (NMCMA) e no equalizador Soft Direct Decision (SDD) em uma arquitetura concorrente. Este novo equalizador concorrente NMCMA-SDD ? comparado com o estado da arte, o equalizador concorrente com algoritmo de m?dulo constante (CMA)-SDD, operando sob os chamados "Brazil channels A-E", proposto pela Uni?o Internacional das Telecomunica??es (UIT). O equalizador proposto apresenta resultados significativos em compara??o com o estado da arte, possibilitando a opera??o em links de comunica??o sem fio entre ve?culos a?reos n?o tripulados (UAVs), ve?culos terrestres e em outros cen?rios de comunica??o din?mica. / In wireless digital communication systems, the transmitted signal may be affected by several sources of distortion, the most significant being Additive Whit Gaussian Noise (AWGN), multipath and Dopplr effect. In environmets where the impulse response of the communication channel is time variant, as in mobile communications, the multipath distortion is dynamic. Together with the Doppler effect, the dynamic multipath may even completely interrupt the wireless communication link. In order to solve this issue, blind channel equalizers are used to mitigate the multipath and Doppler effects. In this context, this dissertation proposes a novel blind channel equalizer, based on the Nonlinear Modified Constant Modulus Algorithm (NMCMA) and on the Soft Direct Desicion (SDD) equalizers in a concurrent architecture. This novel NMCMA-SDD concurrent equalizer is compared with the state of the art, the Constant Modulus Algorithm (CMA)-SDD concurrent equalizer, over the so-called "Brazil channels A-E", proposed by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The proposed equalizer presents significant results when compared with the state of the art, making possible its operation in wireless communication links for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), terrestrial vehicles, and others dynamic communication scenarios.

Writers from a number of theoretical backgrounds have asserted that agreement in the emotional messages conveyed by various verbal and nonverbal communication channels is related to the communicator's psychological health. If this conjecture is accurate, then congruence among communication channels could be used as a behaviorally based assessment tool. However, empirical research to test this theoretical and clinical assumption is relatively lacking. The present study was designed to test the hypothesis that individuals who display congruence (agreement) between verbal (language), verbal/vocal (language plus paralinguistic cues, or speech) and nonverbal (facial) channels of communication will show a greater degree of mental health than will individuals who display incongruence. "Degree of mental health" was operationally defined as an individual's scores on the Personal Orientation Inventory (POI). Fifty-six subjects were administrated the POI and were interviewed on videotape. Three pairs of judges rated the videotapes for the affects communicated in the video channel (picture only), the audio channel (sound only), and the transcript channel (the subject's words transcribed onto paper). Comparisons of affect ratings across channels yielded difference scores, resulting in measures of various types of congruence. Analyses of variance were carried out with difference scores as independent variables and and overall POI score as the dependent variable. No significant results were obtained. Multivariate analyses of the POI subscales were also performed, again with nonsignificant findings. Alternative explanations of the congruence phenomenon and methodological limitations are presented. Implications for the clinical utility of congruence and for future research are discussed.

I Vara kommun samverkar både stat, region, kommun och medborgare i ett projekt för att få fiberbredband på landsbygden. Ett stort förändringsprojekt som involverar många människor och som behöver kommuniceras på ett bra sätt för att skapa förståelse, motivation och engagemang. Syftet med den här uppsatsen har varit att beskriva förändringskommunikation och att kartlägga olika aktörer och kommunikationskanaler som kan vara involverade i en förändringsprocess. Dessutom har syftet varit att få ta del av upplevelsen av den kommunikation som har skett i det här förändringsprojektet i Vara kommun. Studiens fokus resulterade i en kvalitativ design och urvalet av respondenterna som svarade på upplevelsen av kommunikationen gjordes utifrån de föreningsrepresentanter som har varit aktiva i projektet. Dessutom har en kartläggning av bakgrund, aktörer och kommunikationskanaler skett via informanter som har varit aktuella. Författaren har själv varit engagerad i projektet. De kommunikationskanaler som aktörerna har använt sig av har varit elektroniska, skriftliga och muntliga. Engagemang, förväntningar och relationer är de 3 tema som den tematiska analysen resulterade i och har varit underlag för att beskriva upplevelsen av kommunikationen. Kommunikationen upplevs ha varit som en bergodalbana, där förtroendet har gått upp och ner. Det förutsätts att kommunikation fungerar men det är viktigt att ledningen redan på den strategiska nivån lyfter upp förändringskommunikationen. / Vara municipality interact at both national, regional, local government and citizens in a project to get fiber broadband in rural areas. A major change project involving many people and need to communication in a good way to create understanding, motivation and commitment. The purpose of this paper was to describe change communication and to identify the different actors and communication channels involved in a process of change. In addition, the aim has been to benefit from the experience of the communication that has occurred in this change project in Vara Municipality. Focus of the study resulted in a qualitative design and selection of respondents who responded to the experience of communication made by the representatives who have been active in the project. In addition, a survey of the background, actors and communication channels occurred via informants who have been relevant. The author herself has been involved in the project. The communication channels that participants have used have been electronic, written and oral. Commitment, expectations and relationships are the 3 theme that the thematic analysis resulted in, and has been a basis for describing the experience of communication. The communication is perceived to have been as a rollercoaster, where thrust has gone up and down. It assumed that communication works but it is important that management already on the strategic level work with change communication

<p>Researchers have long assumed that black widow coloration functions as a warning signal to avian predators. However adult female black widow coloration does not resemble typical warning coloration in two distinct ways. First, black widows are less colorful than most other documented aposematic species. Second, the hourglass shape of an adult female varies both between species and within a site. Here I examine the ultimate causes and consequences of North American black widow coloration. </p><p>In chapter two I present data that suggest that black widow coloration not only functions as an aposematic signal to avian predators, but has also been selected to be inconspicuous to insect prey. In choice experiments with wild birds, I found that the red-and-black coloration of black widows deters potential predators: wild birds were ~3 times less likely to attack a black widow model with a red hourglass than one without. Using visual-system appropriate models, I also found that a black widow's red-and-black color combo is more apparent to a typical bird than typical insect (Euclidean color distance ~2.2 times greater for birds than insects). Additionally, an ancestral reconstruction revealed that red dorsal coloration is ancestral in black widows and that at some point some North American black widows lost their red dorsal coloration (while maintaining the ventral hourglass). Behaviorally, differences in red dorsal coloration between two North American species are accompanied by differences in microhabitat that affects how often a bird will view a black widow's dorsal region. All observations are consistent with a cost-benefit tradeoff of being conspicuous to potential predators while being inconspicuous to prey. I suggest that avoiding detection by prey --- combined with Müllerian mimicry --- may help explain why red-and-black aposematic signals occur frequently in nature.</p><p>In chapter three, I examine the variation in hourglass shape. Classical aposematic theory predicts near uniformity in warning signal appearance because a uniform signal is easier to learn to avoid than a variable signal. However the shape of the hourglass of North American black widows appears to vary both within and between sites in ways that are inconsistent with classical aposematic theory. Using 133 black widows of three different species from nine sites across the United States, I quantified the variation in hourglass shape and examined how Müllerian mimicry, species type, and condition each influenced hourglass shape. A principle components analysis revealed that 84.5% of the variation in hourglass shape can be explained by principle components 1, 2, and 3, which corresponded to hourglass size (PC1), the separation between hourglass parts (PC2), and the slenderness of the hourglass (PC3). Both a black widow's condition and species significantly predicted hourglass shape; however I found no support for localized Müllerian mimicry within different geographical regions. My results suggest a relaxed role for selection on hourglass shape. I discuss several hypotheses that could explain the variation in hourglass morphology including that potential predators may avoid any red markings rather than an exact shape (categorical rather than continuous perception).</p><p>In chapter four I expand on my work from chapter two to examine the eavesdropper's perspective on private communication channels. Private communication may benefit signalers by reducing the costs imposed by potential eavesdroppers such as parasites, predators, prey, or rivals. It is likely that private communication channels are influenced by the evolution of signalers, intended receivers, and potential eavesdroppers, but most studies only examine how private communication benefits signalers. Here, I address this shortcoming by examining visual private communication from a potential eavesdropper's perspective. Specifically, I ask if a signaler would face fitness consequences if a potential eavesdropper could detect its signal more clearly. By integrating studies on private communication with those on the evolution of vision, I suggest that published studies find few taxon-based constraints that could keep potential eavesdroppers from detecting most hypothesized forms of visual private communication. However, I find that private signals may persist over evolutionary time if the benefits of detecting a particular signal do not outweigh the functional costs a potential eavesdropper would suffer from evolving the ability to detect it.</p> / Dissertation