Non-financial disclosures are of considerable interest and importance to the reporting world and decision making. However, many companies fail to disclose adequate information on their non-financial matters. The lack of internationally accepted requirements for the presentation of non-financial disclosures is one reason for inadequate reporting of non-financial matters and the reporting differences among companies. The aim of this dissertation was to explore the nature and extent of non-financial disclosure in South African mining companies listed on the JSE Securities Exchange. This sector was chosen because of its high risky nature and its significant role in the South African economy. The data were collected from 22 South African mining companies‘ websites and related to the 2004, 2005 and 2006 annual reports. A disclosure index was developed to investigate the extent and nature of non-financial disclosure in the South African mining companies with regards to environmental, social, corporate governance, forward-looking information and Management Discussion and Analysis (MD&A), and the extent of non-financial disclosure with the JSE Securities Exchange reporting requirements; that is, the King II and the JSE SRI Index. Thereafter, a content analysis of the companies‘ annual reports was carried out using the disclosure index developed for this study. The study found that the non-financial disclosure for all 22 mining companies showed an increasing trend over the years studied. Mining companies were disclosing environmental issues more than any of the other non-financial disclosure items. However, more than half of the companies did not provide information with regard to their non-compliance issues. Generally this means that, although the mining companies face obvious risks, they are better at disclosing positive rather than negative information. The main reason for the increase in the companies‘ adoption of Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) as a non-financial reporting guideline is King II. The study demonstrates that there was not 100% compliance level of adherence with the reporting requirements of the JSE Securities Exchange on corporate governance and integrated sustainability reporting. Keywords: Non-financial disclosures, mining companies, South Africa, JSE Securities Exchange, environmental, social, corporate governance, forward-looking, MD&A. / Thesis (M.Acc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2009.

Reality television is unique from other television programming because its format is less scripted than typical entertainment television programs, but not as candid as documentary style shows. Aspects of cast members’ private lives are publicly aired as “real.” The consequences for airing one’s private life in the public sphere are unclear. This may be especially important to study when the private disclosures reveal activities that may be unethical, immoral, illegal, or abusive. Petronio’s (date) communication privacy management theory was used to examine the martial disclosures that occurred between Taylor and Russell Armstrong, cast members of the reality television show The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Two seasons of the show were analyzed and coded according to the five suppositions of CPM. Results revealed several aspects of Walker’s cycle of violence theory being played out in the public sphere without consequence. Additionally, co-ownership of information appeared to constitute a license to gossip freely about private disclosures shared in confidence between certain individuals with any and all other cast members.

Due to the rapid evolution of technology, IT software has become incredibly complex. However the human factor still has a very important role on the application of it, since people are responsible to create software. Consequently, software vulnerabilities represent inevitable drawbacks, found to cost extremely large amounts of money to the companies. “Heartbleed” is a recently discovered vulnerability with no prior investigation that answers questions about the impact it has to the companies affected. This paper focuses on the impact of it on the market value of the companies who participated in the vulnerability disclosure process with the help of an event study methodology. Furthermore our analysis investigates if there is a different affection to the value of the company based on the roles those companies had in the process. Our results suggest that the market did not punish the companies about the existence of vulnerability. However the general negative reaction of the market to the incident reflects the importance of a strategic vulnerability disclosure plan for such cases.

Kinderseksuele misbruik het langtermyneffekte op die persoon wat as kind seksueel misbruik is, en dit kan strek tot in sy of haar jong volwasse jare. Dit is dus belangrik dat daar aandag gegee word aan die nodige ondersteuningsnetwerke/hulpbronne wat beskikbaar is vir jong volwassenes wat slagoffers is van seksuele misbruik tydens hulle kinderjare. Deur te bepaal aan watter persone hierdie slagoffers bereid is om die misbruik te openbaar, kan gebruik gemaak word van eienskappe wat benodig word vir effektiewe openbaarmaking. Met die gemengde kwantitatiewe en kwalitatiewe navoringsontwerp is daar op die tweede– en derdejaar maatskaplike werkstudente van die Noordwes–Universiteit (Potchefstroomkampus) as respondente van die studie gefokus. Daar is gebruik gemaak van ‘n doelgerigte steekproef om respondente te verkry vir die studie en selfopgestelde, groep–geadministreerde vraelyste is aan hulle uitgedeel. Die verkennende navorsingsontwerp is gebruik om meer inligting oor die navorsingsonderwerp te bekom, aangesien daar beperkte inligting beskikbaar is en min navorsing daaroor onderneem is binne die Suid–Afrikaanse opset. Die doel van die studie is om vas te stel watter hulpbronne beskikbaar gestel moet word aan slagoffers van seksuele misbruik tydens hulle kinderjare, sodat hulle vroeër in hulle lewe die misbruik openbaar en die nodige hulp kan verkry vir die trauma wat hulle ervaar het. Dit is uit die bevindings duidelik dat die noodsaaklikheid bestaan vir die bewusmaking onder die gemeenskap om van die beskikbare hulpbronne vir persone wat slagoffers van kinderseksuele misbruik, gebruik te maak. Aanbevelings rakende die inhoud word in die studie uiteengesit en aanbevelings vir verdere navorsing word ook aan die hand gedoen. Die gebruik van bewusmakingsprogramme is noodsaaklik om die gemeenskap in te lig oor die dinamika van kinderseksuele misbruik. / Thesis (M.A. (MW))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012.

Kinderseksuele misbruik het langtermyneffekte op die persoon wat as kind seksueel misbruik is, en dit kan strek tot in sy of haar jong volwasse jare. Dit is dus belangrik dat daar aandag gegee word aan die nodige ondersteuningsnetwerke/hulpbronne wat beskikbaar is vir jong volwassenes wat slagoffers is van seksuele misbruik tydens hulle kinderjare. Deur te bepaal aan watter persone hierdie slagoffers bereid is om die misbruik te openbaar, kan gebruik gemaak word van eienskappe wat benodig word vir effektiewe openbaarmaking. Met die gemengde kwantitatiewe en kwalitatiewe navoringsontwerp is daar op die tweede– en derdejaar maatskaplike werkstudente van die Noordwes–Universiteit (Potchefstroomkampus) as respondente van die studie gefokus. Daar is gebruik gemaak van ‘n doelgerigte steekproef om respondente te verkry vir die studie en selfopgestelde, groep–geadministreerde vraelyste is aan hulle uitgedeel. Die verkennende navorsingsontwerp is gebruik om meer inligting oor die navorsingsonderwerp te bekom, aangesien daar beperkte inligting beskikbaar is en min navorsing daaroor onderneem is binne die Suid–Afrikaanse opset. Die doel van die studie is om vas te stel watter hulpbronne beskikbaar gestel moet word aan slagoffers van seksuele misbruik tydens hulle kinderjare, sodat hulle vroeër in hulle lewe die misbruik openbaar en die nodige hulp kan verkry vir die trauma wat hulle ervaar het. Dit is uit die bevindings duidelik dat die noodsaaklikheid bestaan vir die bewusmaking onder die gemeenskap om van die beskikbare hulpbronne vir persone wat slagoffers van kinderseksuele misbruik, gebruik te maak. Aanbevelings rakende die inhoud word in die studie uiteengesit en aanbevelings vir verdere navorsing word ook aan die hand gedoen. Die gebruik van bewusmakingsprogramme is noodsaaklik om die gemeenskap in te lig oor die dinamika van kinderseksuele misbruik. / Thesis (M.A. (MW))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012.

国立情報学研究所で電子化したコンテンツを使用している。

This study examines the role of three institutional factors (regulative; normative and cultural-cognitive pillars of institutions) in addressing agency problems of Australia. In the wake of the series of corporate collapses of current decade, director and executive remuneration was identified as one of the major causes behind these scandals. The Australian government and other related organisations made both regulative and non-regulative institutional reforms to manage this agency conflict. These reforms, encapsulated in Corporate Law Economic Reform Program (CLERP) Act 2004 demanded an increased level of disclosure of director and executive remuneration particularly, the disclosure of performance based salary. Subsequently, these amendments provided an opportunity through a non-binding vote to shareholders to participate in executive remuneration decisions. This study proposes a new synthesis of institutional and agency theories by examining how institutional interventions addresses agency conflicts in the Australian context. A conceptual model is developed to measure both the conjoined and distinctive institutional impact on the disclosure level of director and executive remuneration in Australia. To measure and quantify the aforementioned impact a mixed method research strategy was used. First, content analysis as an investigative tool was used to develop a disclosure index which determined the level of disclosure of director and executive remuneration from top 100 Australian listed entities. Second, a conceptual model, positing the relationships between independent and dependent variables was verified through an econometric analysis of collected data, performed through the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 15. The findings of this research reveal that there exists a significant difference between the levels of disclosure in the pre and post stages of the introduction of the CLERP Act 2004. This result highlights the significance of regulatory intervention in addressing agency conflicts. The study also indicates that regulative and normative pillars have a higher impact than the culture-cognitive pillar on disclosure practices of Australian firms. In light of these results, the new blend between agency and institutional theories highlight the role of different institutions, particularly the government, in stabilising the organisational practices for good governance and creating national competitive advantages.

Title page, table of contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University of Adelaide Library. / The objectives of this study were: to understand the process of environmental disclosures operating within a conservation organisation; to identify the nature of and rationales for particular environmental disclosures made by the organisation; and to observe the development of the environmental disclosure policy, media and content of the organisation as it underwent significant change. The investigative approach adopted in the study identified a level of complexity associated with the process of disclosure that would otherwise remained concealed. / http://proxy.library.adelaide.edu.au/login?url= http://library.adelaide.edu.au/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=1277152 / Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Commerce, 2007

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / The rapid pace of growth in the field of human genetics has left researchers with many new challenges in the area of security and privacy. To encourage participation and foster trust towards research, it is important to ensure that genetic databases are adequately protected. This task is a particularly challenging one for statistical agencies due to the high prevalence of categorical data contained within statistical genetic databases. The absence of natural ordering makes the application of traditional Statistical Disclosure Control (SDC) methods less straightforward, which is why we have proposed a new noise addition technique for categorical values. The main contributions of the thesis are as follows. We provide a comprehensive analysis of the trust relationships that occur between the different stakeholders in a genetic data warehouse system. We also provide a quantifiable model of trust that allows the database manager to granulate the level of protection based on the amount of trust that exists between the stakeholders. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that trust has been applied in the SDC context. We propose a privacy protection framework for genetic databases which is designed to deal with the fact that genetic data warehouses typically contain a high proportion of categorical data. The framework includes the use of a clustering technique which allows for the easier application of traditional noise addition techniques for categorical values. Another important contribution of this thesis is a new similarity measure for categorical values, which aims to capture not only the direct similarity between values, but also some sense of transitive similarity. This novel measure also has possible applications in providing a way of ordering categorical values, so that more traditional SDC methods can be more easily applied to them. Our analysis of experimental results also points to a numerical attribute phenomenon, whereby we typically have high similarity between numerical values that are close together, and where the similarity decreases as the absolute value of the difference between numerical values increases. However, some numerical attributes appear to not behave in a strictly `numerical' way. That is, values which are close together numerically do not always appear very similar. We also provide a novel noise addition technique for categorical values, which employs our similarity measure to partition the values in the data set. Our method - VICUS - then perturbs the original microdata file so that each value is more likely to be changed to another value in the same partition than one from a different partition. The technique helps to ensure that the perturbed microdata file retains data quality while also preserving the privacy of individual records.

Title page, table of contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University of Adelaide Library. / The objectives of this study were: to understand the process of environmental disclosures operating within a conservation organisation; to identify the nature of and rationales for particular environmental disclosures made by the organisation; and to observe the development of the environmental disclosure policy, media and content of the organisation as it underwent significant change. The investigative approach adopted in the study identified a level of complexity associated with the process of disclosure that would otherwise remained concealed. / http://proxy.library.adelaide.edu.au/login?url= http://library.adelaide.edu.au/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=1277152 / Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Commerce, 2007