Thesis--Universiteit van Amsterdam. / Summary in English. Includes bibliographical references (p. 300-321) and index.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2005. / Title from PDF title page screen. Includes bibliographical references (p. 103-110).

This thesis investigates discourses surrounding upper and middle class Afrikaner women living in Johannesburg during the years 1948, 1949 and 1958. It uses magazines aimed at upper and middle class women as primary sources and also makes use of interviews with upper and middle class women who lived in Johannesburg during 1948. 1949 and 1958. The thesis uses women's magazines. educational magazines and church magazines, as well as the Vrou en Moeder magazine, mouthpiece of the Suid Afrikaanse Vrouefederasie. Conclusions are drawn about the status and role of Afrikaner middle class women in society, as well as the value systems operating at the time. Differences in discourse and changes over time are accounted for. The thesis also draws attention to the importance of using gender as an historical category, and attempts to broaden the method of history by utilising discourse analysis. / History

Cohesion and coupling are considered amongst the most important properties to evaluate the quality of a design. In the context of OO software development, cohesion means relatedness of the public functionality of a class whereas coupling stands for the degree of dependence of a class on other classes in OO system. In this thesis, a new metric has been proposed that measures the class cohesion on the basis of relative relatedness of the public methods to the overall public functionality of a class. The proposed metric for class cohesion uses a new concept of subset tree to determine relative relatedness of the public methods to the overall public functionality of a class. A set of metrics has been proposed for measuring class coupling based on three types of UML relationships, namely association, inheritance and dependency. The reasonable metrics to measure cohesion and coupling are supposed to share the same set of input data. Sharing of input data by the metrics encourages the idea for the existence of mutual relationships between them. Based on potential relationships research questions have been formed. An attempt is made to find answers of these questions with the help of an experiment on OO system FileZilla. Mutual relationships between class cohesion and class coupling have been analyzed statistically while considering OO metrics for size and reuse. Relationships among the pairs of metrics have been discussed and results are drawn in accordance with observed correlation coefficients. A study on Software evolution with the help of class cohesion and class coupling metrics has also been performed and observed trends have been analyzed.

Active learning is a common solution for reducing labeling costs and maximizing the impact of human labeling efforts in binary and multi-class classification settings. However, when we are faced with extreme levels of class imbalance, a situation in which it is not safe to assume that we have a representative sample of the minority class, it has been shown effective to replace the binary classifiers with a one-class classifiers. In such a setting, traditional active learning methods, and many previously proposed in the literature for one-class classifiers, prove to be inappropriate, as they rely on assumptions about the data that no longer stand. In this thesis, we propose a novel approach to active learning designed for one-class classification. The proposed method does not rely on many of the inappropriate assumptions of its predecessors and leads to more robust classification performance. The gist of this method consists of labeling, in priority, the instances considered to fit the learned class the least by previous iterations of a one-class classification model. Throughout the thesis, we provide evidence for the merits of our method, then deepen our understanding of these merits by exploring the properties of the method that allow it to outperform the alternatives.

The Social Class Worldview Model (SCWM; Liu, 2011) is a recent phenomenological framework, in which social class is understood based on experiences of acculturation, identity, and stress, as opposed to a narrow view of access to resources. Based on this model, people's experiences of social class discrimination (i.e., classism) are an integral part of how they make meaning of their social class. The current study addresses the development and initial validation of the Perceived Classism Questionnaire (PCQ), a scale of distress due to classist experiences. Items were initially created and refined based on a review of the available literature, expert analysis, and a pilot study. In Study 1, an Exploratory Factor Analysis was conducted on a sample of 309 participants, reveling three distinct factors: Downward Classism, Upward Classism, and Lateral Classism. In study 2, a Confirmatory Factor Analysis in a distinct sample of 274 participants provided further support for the three-factor structure of the PCQ. The three subscales were correlated in the expected directions with convergent and discriminant measures (i.e., subjective social status, self-rated health, stress, state and trait anxiety, life satisfaction, and well-being), supporting validity evidence of the PCQ. The Perceived Classism Questionnaire advances on previous scales of classism, as it is a theory-driven scale, and it is not restricted to academic environments. Research and practical implications of the PCQ are discussed.

If we adjoin the cube root of a cube free rational integer <i>m</i> to the rational numbers we construct a cubic field. If we adjoin the cube roots of distinct cube free rational integers <i>m</i> and <i>n</i> to the rational numbers we construct a bicubic field. The number theoretic invariants for the cubic fields and their normal closures are well known. Some work has been done on the units, classnumbers and other invariants of the bicubic fields and their normal closures by Parry but no method is available for calculating those invariants. This dissertation provides an algorithm for calculating the number theoretic invariants of the bicubic fields and their normal closure. Among these invariants are the discriminant, an integral basis, a set of fundamental units, the class number and the rank of the 3-class group. / Ph. D.

The aim of the study was to investigate the impact of the intersection of race, gender and social class on women leaders’ work experience and career progression in order to come up with strategies for gender transformation at leadership level in corporate South Africa. The problem statement of this research study concerns the indication in the annual report of the Commission for Employment Equity (Department of Labour 2012) that there is under-representation of women, especially African and Coloured women, at top management level relative to the economically active population. The Women Empowerment and Gender Equality Bill was published in the Government Gazette No. 37005 of 6 November 2013. This Bill aims to enforce compliance with the stipulated minimum representation of women at senior levels in both the private and public sectors. This study, with its objective of reaching an understanding of the impact of the intersection of race, gender and social class on women’s career progression, is therefore timeous. Getting the perspective of woman CEOs across race and class on how to transform gender at leadership level could add an important voice to transformation and could be of benefit to decision makers in business and in government. Based on this problem statement the following research questions were formulated: - To what extent does the intersection of race, social class and gender impact on women CEOs’ experience in their work roles and career progression? - How might an understanding of women leaders’ experiences in their roles assist with strategies to transform gender at leadership level in corporate South Africa? Qualitative research methodology was chosen as the appropriate methodology and grounded theory was employed. Purposive, snowball and theoretical sampling methods were used to identify fourteen participants (13 CEOs and one chairman).The life story method was employed for in-depth semi-structured interviews from which rich descriptive data was collected and which was analysed using grounded theory. Findings confirmed that the intersection of race, gender, age and class does have an impact on women’s career progression and their life experiences. The dominant social identity was race for blacks and gender whites; class and age were the overlay. In terms of strategies for gender transformation, first-order constructs from the participants were related to abstract second-order constructs from the literature, which led to the formulation of the WHEEL Theoretical Model. The theoretical model is an integration of different elements required for the formulation of strategies for gender transformation at leadership level. The different elements were women themselves; domestic and family support; the organisation; society and government. Despite some limitations that were encountered, the aim of the study was achieved by making a contribution not only to the development of theory related to strategies for gender transformation at leadership level, which other scholars can build from, but also to the gaining of insights into the intersection of multiple social identities and their impact which can be used by business leaders and policymakers to address inequalities in organisations. In addition, this research study made various recommendations for future research / Business Management

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