Background: Palliative care means improving quality of life along a spectrum of illnesses including cancer. Cancer is one of the leading causes of death. Having the discussion of goals of care including palliative care is important to have with individuals who have advanced cancer. There were limited studies that identify the providers’ attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control on discussion of goals of care including palliative care. Purpose/Aim: This Doctoral Project consisted of identifying factors (i.e., attitudes, behaviors and subjective norms) in discussion of goals of care with their terminal cancer patients in the outpatient oncology clinic. Multiple studies have demonstrated the lack of knowledge providers have about palliative care. Through this study, the attitudes, subjective norms, and behaviors of providers were evaluated regarding goals of care for palliative care. Methods: An investigator developed questionnaire with six-point Likert-type scaling was used to measure each dimension (attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control) regarding discussion of goals regarding care. These questionnaires were sent electronically to the oncology providers at Arizona Center for Cancer Care in Phoenix, Arizona. The data were collected through Qualtrics. Outcomes: Six providers participated in the survey. Results on the Attitude subscale indicated that the providers regarded discussing goals of care including palliative as very important and beneficial to patients. In comparison to this subscale score, the results on the Subjective Norms and Perceived Behavioral Control subscales were somewhat lower, though still above the mean, indicating that providers regarded the norm and level of resources available for discussing goals of care as somewhat lacking in their work setting. Further research is needed in this area of inquiry, including a quality improvement project to promote quality care in discussing goals of care including palliative care with patients who are diagnosed with advanced cancer.

Previous studies on correlations dealing with level of aspiration have been few and inconclusive. The problem of the present study was to examine the degree of relationship between an individual's level of aspiration and other personality variables as measured by standardized tests.

The new sustainable development agenda for 2030 was adopted in 2015 with implementation now in progress. This ambitious agenda proposed 17 goals and 169 targets in areas of significance: people, planet, prosperity, peace and partnership. Goal 11 of the 17 Goals strive to ‘make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable’. With people continuously choosing to live and work in cities despite the congestion and pollution that result from the high concentration of people, due to the economic growth, innovation and opportunities offered by cities. Hence, it is important to acknowledge that without well-managed urban transition the success of the SDGs will be difficult in developing countries. In the context of this research, it was important and applicable to look at how the ambitious global agenda like the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), more specifically Goal 11 on cities is being implemented by local government for cities. The research focus on City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality (CTMM) as a case study for implementing SDG 11. The appropriate research methodology, based on an interpretivist paradigm coupled with the phenomenological constructivism nature of this research, is qualitative. The goal was to combine document analysis and semi-structured interviews to provide the researcher with a more complex understanding of the role of local government, and thereby help the researcher answer the research questions. The research shows that the national, provincial, and local priorities in policy and programmes in South Africa have a high overlap with the SDGs. It is well recognized that development in South Africa can only take place through collaboration between citizens and government, thus policies and their implementation will have to recognize the importance of collaboration. Strategic partnerships between different sectors; government, private sector, civil society and international organisations will bring a strong blend to different strengths and has proved to have means for knowledge sharing. Thus, for CTMM to reach its goal of adequately implementing SDG 11 they would have to leverage on strategic partnerships, develop a framework for implementation and monitoring progress as a way of focusing on implementing the objectives of the Urban Goal while ensuring that there is integration between its national agenda and the global goals. / Mini Dissertation (MA (Environment and Society))--University of Pretoria, 2021. / Geography, Geoinformatics and Meteorology / MA (Environment and Society) / Unrestricted

The careers that students pursue after graduating from engineering programs are a central component to engineering education. However, we lack perspective on how students, the main stakeholder of the engineering education system, describe the goals they have for their post-graduation careers and make choices related to those goals. As a first step in closing this gap, I explored the different types of career goals that students have, investigated how students connect different types of goals to choices they make in engineering programs, and developed a survey instrument for future research on career goals. My sequential mixed methods study consisted of three phases. In the first phase, I analyzed interview data via the constant comparative method to explore the different types of career goals that students described. In second phase, I used the types of goals identified in phase one to analyze how students described connecting their career goals to choices they made as undergraduates in longitudinal interview data. In the final phase, I adapted the ideas from phase one and phase two into a quantitative survey instrument, which I piloted for validity and reliability. My study produced four main outcomes. The first outcome was identifying two distinct types of career goals held by students including goals about the jobs students want post-graduation and goals relative to job attributes rather than specific jobs. The second outcome was that students connected both types of career goals to choices they make in the present academic context. The third outcome was that career goals and their connection to choices students make could be measured in a valid, reliable survey instrument. Finally, my results suggest that there may be differences in the ways that male and female students describe their career goals and the ways that career goals are connected to choices. These outcomes have broad implications for students, educators and researchers in the engineering education system. / Ph. D.

Intra-family succession is the transfer of management, leadership and/or control of the business from one family member to another, and has been a core topic in family business research (Debicki, Matherne, Kellermanns, and Chrisman, 2009). Family firm researchers have suggested that family firms have a strong desire toward economic and non-economic goals (Kotlar and De Massis, 2013). However, how these goals fit into the strategic management decision of intra-family succession has not been explored by researchers (Chrisman, Kellermanns, Chan, and Liano, 2010). The purpose of this study is to identify and explain the importance of the goals that small private family firms expect to achieve through intra-family succession that cannot be achieved through non-family succession as “success in strategic management, including the management of intra-family succession, must be measured in terms of goal achievement” (De Massis, Sharma, Chua, and Chrisman, 2012, p. 30). To examine why intra-family succession goals (IFSGs) are important, this study relies on the psychological personality constructs of generativity (concern for guiding and establishing the next generation) and narcissism (an individual’s self-assurance, self-esteem and satisfaction with oneself). The respondents of this study are those family members who make up the dominant coalition (founders, incumbents, and potential successors) of the family firm. Only those firms where the family has the ability to influence firm behavior, and the intention (willingness) for intra-family succession, are included in this study. Qualitative data was collected to identify IFSGs, and these IFSGs are used in the development of the structured questionnaire. Fourteen IFSGs were identified from the qualitative phase of the study. The data collected from the structured questionnaire was subject to various statistical methods. The results suggest that the dominant coalition of small private family firms considered each IFSG as important, and that generativity and narcissism partially explain why these goals are important. The findings suggest that gender and the individual’s role within the dominant coalition influence the hypothesized relationship between IFSGs and generativity, and the IFSG of legacy and narcissism. This research provides several analytical, methodological and theoretical contributions and paves the way for further theoretical and empirical enquiry into intra-family succession of small private family firms.

The general aim of this licentiate thesis is to analyze the framework in which long-term goals are set and subsequently achieved. It is often claimed that goals should be realistic, meaning that they should be adjusted to known abilities. This thesis will argue that this might be very difficult in areas related to sustainable development and climate change adaptation, and that goals that are, to an acceptable degree, unrealistic, can have important functions. Essay I discusses long-term goal setting. When there is a great temporal discrepancy between the point in time of setting and achieving a goal, many uncertainties have to be considered. The surrounding world and the agent’s abilities and values might change. This is an ontological uncertainty. We often form beliefs regarding how abilities and values might change, but this belief is always uncertain. This is an epistemological uncertainty. A form of goal called cautiously utopian goals is proposed, which incorporate such uncertainties, but enables goal setting with long time-frames. Essay II discusses the issue of goals intended to reduce great risks. We cannot expect an agent to do something that lies beyond this agent’s abilities, as exemplified in the principle ‘ought implies can’. Adjusting goals to what we currently, with a high degree of certainty know could be done is difficult. If not including an estimation of how abilities can change, important performance-enhancing functions of goals might be lost. It is argued that very ambitious goals should be set. This is partly due to the great magnitude and likelihood of unwanted consequences and partly due to the difficulty of delineating what lies in agents’ capacity to manage complex risks. Essay III discusses a decision-facilitating tool Sustainability Analysis to be used by Swedish municipal planners. One sub-part of the tool, Goal Conflict Analysis, can be used to identify how the consequences of a planned adaptation measure will affect other long-term municipal goals. Identified goal conflicts can then be used in order to determine whether the conflicts are acceptable, or whether a different adaptation measure should be worked out. The paper discusses a workshop in a Swedish municipality in which the tool has been tested. / <p>QC 20140505</p>

Past research has indicated that children with language impairment (LI) struggle more than children with typical language in their social interactions (Fujiki, Brinton, & Todd, 1999). The purpose of this study was to determine if the social strategies and goals of children with LI varied from those of children with typically developing language. A social goals questionnaire was used to determine the strategies the children verbally indicated that they would use. The children were then asked why they would use the selected strategy. The responses were then separated into goal categories. A chi-square analysis indicated that children with LI varied significantly from children with typical language in their selection of the strategies of adult-seeking, passive, and hostile-controlling strategies. A descriptive analysis of the social goals showed the goals to be less relationship-oriented and less congruent with the selected strategy than typically developing peers.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.