This mini-dissertation was submitted in partial compliance with the requirements for the Master's Degree in Technology: Homoeopathy, Durban Institute of Technology, 2007. / This study aimed to assess the perceptions and career choices made by Technikon Witwatersrand Homoeopathy graduates from 1998 to 2004. It is noted that Technikon Witwatersrand (TWR) is now known as University of Johannesburg; however as the name change did not occur at the time of this study, this study refers to this institution as TWR throughout. The study was designed to investigate their demographic composition as well as aspects concerning career choices, the status of their practices and the reality of Homoeopathy being a viable and satisfactory career choice. / M

O desenvolvimento infantil tem sido considerado como um processo, que envolve modificabilidade, transformação e interação com o ambiente social. A trajetória desse desenvolvimento, mesmo antes do nascimento, pode ser exposta a múltiplos e contínuos eventos adversos, os fatores de risco, que podem e, normalmente, ocorrem em conjunto, potencializando a gravidade das suas conseqüências. Entre os fatores de risco mais estudados, estão as carências nutricionais, enfoque do presente estudo, cujos objetivos foram: 1- avaliar o desenvolvimento mental e psicomotor de crianças com carências nutricionais, através das Escalas Bayley de Desenvolvimento Infantil; 2- verificar se existe relação entre os resultados nas escalas mental e psicomotora das Escalas Bayley, com alguns fatores potenciais de risco ao desenvolvimento infantil. A amostra foi constituída por 59 crianças de ambos os sexos, com faixa etária entre 4 e 42 meses, que freqüentavam duas creches do município de Ribeirão Preto. Foram realizadas entrevistas individuais com os pais ou responsáveis e as crianças foram submetidas às avaliações clínico-nutricional, hematológica, e do desenvolvimento infantil, utilizando-se as Escalas Bayley de Desenvolvimento Infantil - Segunda Edição. De acordo com a avaliação clínico-nutricional e hematológica as crianças foram distribuídas em dois grupos: Controle e Carente Nutricional, segundo o z-escore proposto pela Organização Mundial de Saúde e níveis sanguíneos de hemoglobina. A análise dos dados mostrou que desnutrição e anemia ferropriva são ocorrências comuns para uma grande proporção (46%) destas crianças. A análise estatística demonstrou não haver diferença significante entre os índices médios dos dois grupos, tanto na avaliação do desenvolvimento mental, quanto psicomotor. Os valores médios do Índice de Desenvolvimento Mental (IDM) e Índice de Desenvolvimento Psicomotor (IDP), de ambos os grupos, encontraram-se na classificação de desenvolvimento normal. No entanto, em ambos os grupos, metade das crianças apresentou desempenho prejudicado na avaliação mental e, cerca de um terço, também mostrou prejuízo na avaliação psicomotora. Entre os antecedentes selecionados para análise (escolaridade do pai e da mãe; número de habitantes na casa; número de filhos; ordem de nascimento da criança; idade da mãe na época da gestação; problemas durante a gestação; condições alimentares da mãe durante a gestação; duração do período de amamentação; condições alimentares da criança em sua residência; condições de saúde da criança), as crianças cujos pais tinham maior nível de escolaridade, apresentaram valores de IDM maiores. O fator escolaridade pode estar relacionado à maior estimulação ambiental, ao maior acesso à informação, gerando também melhores cuidados oferecidos às crianças. Os dados obtidos, no presente estudo, sugerem que nutrição e ambiente estão em interação, sendo que os prováveis efeitos do insulto nutricional são dependentes do contexto sócio-ambiental em que ocorrem. Além disso, demonstram que vários fatores ambientais e sócio-econômicos podem, por si só, levar a prejuízos no desenvolvimento infantil. Tais fatores, associados a alguma carência nutricional, podem se mostrar poderosos confundidores dos resultados na avaliação do desenvolvimento infantil / The child development has been considered as a process that involves modification, transformation and interaction with the social environment. The trajectory of development, even before the birth, can be exposed to multiples and continuous adverse events, the risk factors, that cannot and, usually, happen together, increasing the severity of its consequences. Among the studied risk factors, there are the nutritional deficiences, focus of the present study, whose objectives were: 1 - to evaluate the mental and psychomotor development of children with nutritional deficiences, through the Bayley Scales of Infant Development; 2 - to verify relationship among the results in the mental and psychomotor scales of the Bayley Scales, with some potential factors of risk to the child development.The sample was constituted by 59 children of both gender, from 4 to 42 months of age, that have attended at two day care of the municipal district of Ribeirão Preto. Individual interviews were accomplished with the parents or responsible person, and the children were submited to the evaluations clinical-nutritional, hematological, and of the child development, through Bayley Scales of Infant Development - Second Edition. In agreement with the clinical-nutritional and hematological evaluation, the children were distributed in two groups: Control and Nutritional Deficient, according to the z-score proposed by the World Organization of Health and hemoglobin values.The analysis of the data showed that malnutrition and iron-deficiency anemia are common occurrences for a great proportion (46%) of these children. The statistical analysis demonstrated no significant difference among the medium indexes of the two groups, so much in the evaluation of the mental development, as psicomotor. The medium values of Mental Development Index (MDI) and Psychomotor Development Index (PDI), of both groups, met in the classification of normal development. However, in both groups, the children\'s half presented mildly delayed performance in the mental evaluation and, about a third, also presented delayed in the psicomotor evaluation. Among the antecedents selected for analysis (level of education of the parents; number of inhabitants in the house; number of children; order from birth of the child; the mother\'s age at the time of the gestation; problems during the gestation; the mother\'s alimentary conditions during the gestation; duration of the breast-feeding period; the child\'s alimentary conditions in its residence; conditions of the child\'s health), the children whose parents had larger level of education, presented values of larger MDI. The factor level of education can be related to the largest environmental stimulation, to the largest access to the information, also generating better cares offered to the children. The obtained data, in the present study, they suggest that nutrition and environment are in interaction, and the probable effects of the nutritional insult are dependent of the social and environmental context in that happen. Furthermore, they demonstrate that several environmental and socioeconomic factors can, by itself, to take the damages of the child development. Such factors, associated to some nutritional lack, can be shown powerful confounders of the results in the evaluation of the child development

Kwok Kin-fun. / Thesis (MSW)--Chinese University of Hong Kong. / Bibliography: leaves 197-203.

Environmental education has been a prominent approach to achieve sustainable development and counteract the megatrend of environmental degradation. In Costa Rica, environmental education has been adopted as an essential tool for protecting and improving the natural environment. The people of Costa Rica have emphasized an awareness of environmental issues and an ability to actively engage in environmental education and sustainable development programs. International development organizations have invested in development programs to establish or improve sustainable development. In order to understand whether international development organizations are achieving their stated mission and goals for implementing development programs, donors and funding agencies usually require that the sponsored programs be evaluated. Unfortunately, there is a growing concern that the current practice of development evaluation limits the reporting of impacts to be fundamentally inconsistent which has created incentives for evaluations to include positive bias instead of serving the purpose to improve organizational decision-making. This research study proposed to evaluate the reaction of a community in Limon, Costa Rica to development programs using an operational framework of evaluation and logic models found in the review of literature. The researcher adopted a naturalistic case study approach intended to retain the natural context of the community setting and provide a holistic understanding of community perceptions. Qualitative methods based in rapid rural appraisal were used to collect data from a purposeful sample and a stratified purposeful sample within the population. Data analysis was conducted at both the research site during data collection and after all data was collected. The researcher incorporated the constant comparative method to determine consistencies, anomalies, patterns, and emerging themes during data analysis. Three overarching themes emerged as a result of the study: (a) community development with subcategories describing community improvement, collaboration with the international development organization, integration of individuals and groups within the community, and the sustainability of projects, (b) education with subcategories expanding on ideas and motivation, learning, and inspiration for the children, and (c) culture with subcategories that discussed community culture, the organizational culture of the international development organization, and relationships.

In the context of sustainable development, evaluations have particularly high relevance as complex issues have to be dealt with generally over an extended period of time. Furthermore, there is a growing demand to evaluate against the concept of sustainable development. Especially evaluations with sustainable development are a rather new type of evaluation, as the source of its evaluation questions and the criteria applied are rooted in the concept of sustainable development. Sustainability of a specific project or process is often highly case specific as sustainable development is determined by many often unique issues. However, evaluations would be highly inefficient, if they would have to be newly designed in every case. Thus it is necessary to determine and utilize the major issues for evaluations with sustainable development. This paper is part of a series of three papers - which can be used independently - that present the major common issues for evaluations with sustainable development in a Tool Box. The results presented here are based on outcomes of a research project funded by the "Austrian Science Fund". This paper includes the evaluation planning and commissioning procedure. It describes the steps from the idea to implementation of an evaluation with sustainable development. In the context of general requirements of evaluation planning and commissioning, the special features of evaluations with sustainable development are highlighted. (author's abstract) / Series: Research Paper Series of the Research Focus Managing Sustainability

O desenvolvimento infantil tem sido considerado como um processo, que envolve modificabilidade, transformação e interação com o ambiente social. A trajetória desse desenvolvimento, mesmo antes do nascimento, pode ser exposta a múltiplos e contínuos eventos adversos, os fatores de risco, que podem e, normalmente, ocorrem em conjunto, potencializando a gravidade das suas conseqüências. Entre os fatores de risco mais estudados, estão as carências nutricionais, enfoque do presente estudo, cujos objetivos foram: 1- avaliar o desenvolvimento mental e psicomotor de crianças com carências nutricionais, através das Escalas Bayley de Desenvolvimento Infantil; 2- verificar se existe relação entre os resultados nas escalas mental e psicomotora das Escalas Bayley, com alguns fatores potenciais de risco ao desenvolvimento infantil. A amostra foi constituída por 59 crianças de ambos os sexos, com faixa etária entre 4 e 42 meses, que freqüentavam duas creches do município de Ribeirão Preto. Foram realizadas entrevistas individuais com os pais ou responsáveis e as crianças foram submetidas às avaliações clínico-nutricional, hematológica, e do desenvolvimento infantil, utilizando-se as Escalas Bayley de Desenvolvimento Infantil - Segunda Edição. De acordo com a avaliação clínico-nutricional e hematológica as crianças foram distribuídas em dois grupos: Controle e Carente Nutricional, segundo o z-escore proposto pela Organização Mundial de Saúde e níveis sanguíneos de hemoglobina. A análise dos dados mostrou que desnutrição e anemia ferropriva são ocorrências comuns para uma grande proporção (46%) destas crianças. A análise estatística demonstrou não haver diferença significante entre os índices médios dos dois grupos, tanto na avaliação do desenvolvimento mental, quanto psicomotor. Os valores médios do Índice de Desenvolvimento Mental (IDM) e Índice de Desenvolvimento Psicomotor (IDP), de ambos os grupos, encontraram-se na classificação de desenvolvimento normal. No entanto, em ambos os grupos, metade das crianças apresentou desempenho prejudicado na avaliação mental e, cerca de um terço, também mostrou prejuízo na avaliação psicomotora. Entre os antecedentes selecionados para análise (escolaridade do pai e da mãe; número de habitantes na casa; número de filhos; ordem de nascimento da criança; idade da mãe na época da gestação; problemas durante a gestação; condições alimentares da mãe durante a gestação; duração do período de amamentação; condições alimentares da criança em sua residência; condições de saúde da criança), as crianças cujos pais tinham maior nível de escolaridade, apresentaram valores de IDM maiores. O fator escolaridade pode estar relacionado à maior estimulação ambiental, ao maior acesso à informação, gerando também melhores cuidados oferecidos às crianças. Os dados obtidos, no presente estudo, sugerem que nutrição e ambiente estão em interação, sendo que os prováveis efeitos do insulto nutricional são dependentes do contexto sócio-ambiental em que ocorrem. Além disso, demonstram que vários fatores ambientais e sócio-econômicos podem, por si só, levar a prejuízos no desenvolvimento infantil. Tais fatores, associados a alguma carência nutricional, podem se mostrar poderosos confundidores dos resultados na avaliação do desenvolvimento infantil / The child development has been considered as a process that involves modification, transformation and interaction with the social environment. The trajectory of development, even before the birth, can be exposed to multiples and continuous adverse events, the risk factors, that cannot and, usually, happen together, increasing the severity of its consequences. Among the studied risk factors, there are the nutritional deficiences, focus of the present study, whose objectives were: 1 - to evaluate the mental and psychomotor development of children with nutritional deficiences, through the Bayley Scales of Infant Development; 2 - to verify relationship among the results in the mental and psychomotor scales of the Bayley Scales, with some potential factors of risk to the child development.The sample was constituted by 59 children of both gender, from 4 to 42 months of age, that have attended at two day care of the municipal district of Ribeirão Preto. Individual interviews were accomplished with the parents or responsible person, and the children were submited to the evaluations clinical-nutritional, hematological, and of the child development, through Bayley Scales of Infant Development - Second Edition. In agreement with the clinical-nutritional and hematological evaluation, the children were distributed in two groups: Control and Nutritional Deficient, according to the z-score proposed by the World Organization of Health and hemoglobin values.The analysis of the data showed that malnutrition and iron-deficiency anemia are common occurrences for a great proportion (46%) of these children. The statistical analysis demonstrated no significant difference among the medium indexes of the two groups, so much in the evaluation of the mental development, as psicomotor. The medium values of Mental Development Index (MDI) and Psychomotor Development Index (PDI), of both groups, met in the classification of normal development. However, in both groups, the children\'s half presented mildly delayed performance in the mental evaluation and, about a third, also presented delayed in the psicomotor evaluation. Among the antecedents selected for analysis (level of education of the parents; number of inhabitants in the house; number of children; order from birth of the child; the mother\'s age at the time of the gestation; problems during the gestation; the mother\'s alimentary conditions during the gestation; duration of the breast-feeding period; the child\'s alimentary conditions in its residence; conditions of the child\'s health), the children whose parents had larger level of education, presented values of larger MDI. The factor level of education can be related to the largest environmental stimulation, to the largest access to the information, also generating better cares offered to the children. The obtained data, in the present study, they suggest that nutrition and environment are in interaction, and the probable effects of the nutritional insult are dependent of the social and environmental context in that happen. Furthermore, they demonstrate that several environmental and socioeconomic factors can, by itself, to take the damages of the child development. Such factors, associated to some nutritional lack, can be shown powerful confounders of the results in the evaluation of the child development

Orientador: Sergio Luiz Monteiro Salles Filho / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Geociencias / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-04T03:24:26Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Zackiewicz_Mauro_D.pdf: 9450907 bytes, checksum: 44397bd805a45f6ba2c58a384b601095 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005 / Resumo: A discussão sobre desafios e trajetórias da avaliação em ciência, tecnologia e inovação (C, T &L) está diretamente ligada aos desafios de compreender como participação e aprendizado se relacionam com avaliação. A partir de um esquema analítico geral, são discutidos os fundamentos, a variação de formas possíveis e os principais desafios colocados aos processos de avaliação. Alguns problemas importantes em avaliações merecem destaque, como os limites lógicos à escolha social, a delimitação das relações de causalidade e atribuição, a legitimação via objetivação das avaliações e as inevitáveis influências subjetivas. A Parte 1 deste trabalho aborda o tema avaliação de modo relativamente abstrato, com ênfase em aspectos conceituais e lógicos dos processos individuais e sociais que geram as avaliações e seus métodos. Na Parte II, a discussão se volta aos diferentes contextos para os quais métodos de avaliação da ciência e da tecnologia foram desenvolvidos. Os principais métodos correntemente empregados para avaliar a C&T são apresentados e um método especificamente desenhado para a avaliação no contexto da C&T em Rede é descrito detalhadamente. Essa forma institucional da ciência e tecnologia é caracterizada pela co-existência de múltiplos arranjos entre múltiplos atores da sociedade, orientados à produção de conhecimento e inovação. Nela, características como participação, aprendizado e promoção de efeitos de coordenação visando inovação são distintivas. Essas premissas são ponto de partida para o Método de Avaliação em Múltiplas Dimensões (MDM) apresentado e discutido ao final do trabalho / Abstract: The challenges and trajectories facing evaluation practices in science, technology and innovation are directly related to the comprehension of the links between evaluation, learning and actor's participation. A general analytical framework is proposed to discuss the evaluation practices fundamentals, their methodological variability and their main threats. Some important problems are highlighted, as the logical limits to social choice, the causal attribution between phenomena, the legitimacy of objective structures vis a vis the inexorable subjective influences. Part I presents in a formal way the logical and conceptual aspects of individual and collective methods and processes of evaluation. Part II presents three different institutional contexts of science and technology activities and the different methodological approaches that each one requires and legitimates. The main methods currently used to evaluate science and technology are discussed under this framework and a specific method designed to work in a network context is detailed. The institutional context of the Network Science and Technology is characterized by the coexistence of heterogeneous actors and organizations arrangements oriented to produce knowledge and innovation. At this context, elements like participation, learning and coordination effects are distinctive. These are premises of he Multi Dimensional Method of Evaluation (MDM) presented and discussed at the end of this work / Doutorado / Politica Cientifica e Tecnologica / Doutor em Política Científica e Tecnológica

M.Ed. (Educational Psychology) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

D.Ed (Educational Psychology) / It is a well known fact that, especially in the developed and industrialised countries the child can not but attain adulthood and independence via the school and school learning. The child's progress at school depends largely on his readiness to learn. Because it is no longer acceptable for the school to receive school beginners with a take-it or leave-it attitude and practice, the Transvaal Education Department adopted the policy that all school beginners be subjected to a school readiness programme to ensure that they will in fact profit from formal learning. Because application of the prescribed procedures which underlies all these programmes had not yet been investigated empirically, an intensive evaluation was conducted in 1977 at the RAU. The findings indicated certain deficiencies in the existing programme. It appeared, for example, that differentiation was not applied sufficiently and that more emphasis should be laid on certain aspects of cognitive development. An attempt was therefore made in this study to redesign the existing programme. Firstly it was necessary to arrive at a pedagogical view of school entrance which implied a close examination of the school beginner's development and learning, whi~h also emphasised the importance of the teacher's becoming acquainted with the child's level op development on school entry as well as with its learning in order to know how, where and how much she can, may and ought to intervene in the child's development and learning.

M.A. (Development Studies) / During the past decade, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), featured increasingly in development thinking as possible roleplayers in the development process. Initial optimism however, made way for a more realistic view of their abilities and possible contribution to the development effort. The main goal of the study could be identified as the investigation of the possible contribution of NGOs to the development process and especially community development, in terms of the optimised role of NGOs as development agents. To facilitate the analysis and evaluation of the development role of NGOs, a theoretical framework of reference was constructed by presenting an overview of the main development theories. The social development-management approach - one of the most recent development approaches offers excellent opportunities for the application of NGOs in the development process. Diverse historical reasons for the or~g~n and growth of NGOs in the First - and Third World as well as South Africa can be discerned. Although South African NGOs can be compared with similar organisations in the First - and Third World, unique social and political influences led to the formation of NGOs with a distinct character and highly politicised nature. The politicised nature of South African NGOs excluded any possibility of cooperation between the South African government and local NGOs. However, if the potential development role of governments, NGOs and the private sector is analysed, it becomes clear that all development actors need to fulfil a limited albeit complementary role in the development process...