A random population survey (n=601) and a survey of vegetarians (n=106) were conducted to examine South Australians' beliefs about meat and vegetarianism. Meat beliefs, barriers and benefits of vegetarianism, meat consumption, personal values, use of and trust in sources of food/nutrition/health information and demographic variables were measured via a written questionnaire. There were differences in the responses of vegetarians, semi-vegetarians, and non-vegetarians. For example, vegetarians were more likely than non-vegetarians to use and trust unorthodox information sources and to hold universal values (e.g. 'equality'). The factors associated with meat consumption and four sets of health-related beliefs about meat and vegetarianism (Meat is Necessary, Vegetarianism Health Concerns and Appreciates Meat, Meat is Unhealthy, Health Benefits of Vegetarianism) were examined. Other (health and non-health) beliefs, barriers and benefits of vegetarianism were the most important factors overall to be associated with these beliefs and with meat consumption. Information sources were also associated (particularly orthodox, unorthodox, mass media, advertising, and social sources). Together, these results provided insight into how consumption of meat and plant foods might be influenced. Finally, the proportion of prospective vegetarians was gauged. Approximately 15% of non-vegetarians were found to hold similar beliefs about vegetarianism as vegetarians. Prospective vegetarians were distinct from vegetarians and the remaining omnivores. For example, they were less likely than the remaining omnivores to eat red meat as frequently or to be Anglo-Australian. The research suggested that a significant portion of the population is interested in vegetarian diets, but that certain barriers need to be overcome if this is to increase and lead to dietary change; in particular, the beliefs that vegetarian diets are nutritionally inadequate and that meat is essential for health. Tailored communications about how to prepare healthy, tasty vegetarian meals may also be useful. The results indicated the sources of food/nutrition/health information that may be most appropriate to disseminate such messages. Additionally, it was found that ethical (e.g. environmental, animal welfare) issues were linked to health and dietary behaviour. They may need to be more fully addressed by health professionals if the public is to obtain maximum benefit from plant-based diets, with minimum risk. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Department of Public Health, 2001.

As the practice of integrative medicine becomes more common, it is important for library science professionals to understand the research needs of integrative medicine professionals in order to best provide resources and services to this population. This paper surveys integrative medicine professionals affiliated with the four North Carolina academic programs and centers for integrative medicine. The results of this study indicate that this population may need more targeted library services due to the difficulty in finding information in this field.

The purpose of this master thesis is to use marketing theory on the library’s activities. The marketing theory used is the 4Ps; product, price, promotion and place, as it's presented by Philip Kotler. Because the library can be seen as a service oriented organization Christian Gronroos theory of marketing in the service industry also has been used. A case study of the public library in Broby was made to illustrate how the public libraries’ activities can appear in the light of marketing theory. The library went through a dynamic development during the case study, due to the fact that the library moved to a new location. The staff and their manager are aware of that they work in a certain context. Their target groups have special needs and the groups get their information from certain places which the library take advantage of. They also use the institutional channels in the public sector such as the public schools to get their message out. According to marketing theory the context is essential to be able to adapt the products you promote and how you do it. Price has long not been an issue for the libraries’ services but price can also be non-monetary. Its important to know what this price consist of to be able to lower it. It might also depend on the context. The staff believes in the importance of the services that the library provide to the community and promote it to their users. But the employees feel that there is a misconceptions of the  library as a collection of books, which they want to change. Because the library offer intangible goods, services, it is hard to change, because the most tangible the library offers are the books. To be able to grasp the service the user therefore focus on these. To get away from this the library can materialize the library’s services in other ways which takes the focus away from the books.

Since the initial genome sequencing projects along with the recent advances on technology, molecular biology and large scale transcriptome analysis result in data accumulation at a large scale. These data have been provided in different platforms and come from different laboratories therefore, there is a need for compilation and comprehensive analysis. In this thesis, we addressed the automatization of biological data acquisition and integration from these non-uniform data using machine learning techniques. We focused on two different mining studies in the scope of this thesis. In the first study, we worked on characterizing expression patterns of housekeeping genes. We described methodologies to compare measures of housekeeping genes with non-housekeeping genes. In the second study, we proposed a novel framework, bi-k-bi clustering, for finding association rules of gene pairs that can easily operate on large scale and multiple heterogeneous data sets. Results in both studies showed consistency and relatedness with the available literature. Furthermore, our results provided some novel insights waiting to be experimented by the biologists.

AVAILABILITY MANAGEMENT IN CONFIGURE-TO-ORDER MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS Y&ouml / ntem, H&uuml / seyin Erdem M.Sc., Operational Research Supervisor: Asst. Prof. Dr. Sedef Meral December 2009, 98 pages In resource constrained supply chains, where demand is higher than the supply, the decision whether to accept or reject the customer order is a very critical task from resource planning and customer service level perspectives. Since the customers, in today&lsquo / s e-business environment, expect quick responses to their orders, some in-advance work has to be done before the arrival of actual customer orders, especially in configure-to-order (CTO) and make-to-order (MTO) production systems. Available-to-Promise (ATP) is a business function that is becoming the central management system for today&lsquo / s dynamic supply chains whose responsibility is to respond customer orders by considering the trade-off between front-end customer satisfaction and back-end capacity allocation. In this study, we propose an availability management approach that introduces push-based allocation planning by using order segmentation before the arrival of actual customer orders in CTO production environments. Moreover, a two-step order promising framework is introduced in order to increase customer service levels through giving certain or v tentative delivery dates immediately to customer orders before the batch, rule-based actual resource consumption processes. The proposed approach is applied to the real-life processes of an enterprise in order to analyze its applicability and evaluate the benefits that accrue. The results of the experiments prove that, the four-phased availability management approach contribute to both overall profit and customer service levels.

Texte remanié de : Dissertation : Droit : Université de Hambourg : 2008. / Bibliogr. p. 225-252. Notes bibliogr.

Thesis--University of Oklahoma. / Bibliography: leaves 159-175.

Although there is a general trend of aging as the expected longitude increase for human being, the developing countries which, according to the report of WHO, have grown old even before grow rich face a more challenging state than the developed countries. These countries, especially their rural parts, are less likely to adapt to the aging trend with relatively smaller medical budget, less developed professional training of care takers, and a lack of public awareness of prevention and treatment of geriatric disease.(Organization, Health, Promotion, & Course, 2011) On the other hand, it indicates a big stage for distant medical service to play because of its lower cost of implementation and effectiveness in controlling the overall medical expenditure given such service would help to prevent and control at a earlier stage of disease. Therefore in developing countries like China and for population like the older citizen who has less mobility, online healthcare information platform is expected to play a much more important role than in developed countries. At the same time, experienced can be borrowed from investigations and installations of online platform of health information designed for the older population where they usually serve as a supplement to the primary health care facility in developed countries like UK. / published_or_final_version / Library and Information Management / Master / Master of Science in Library and Information Management

D.Tech. Business Administration. Business School. / Focuses on the awareness and knowledge of consumers on organically produced and genetically modified food, and how their self-rated level of knowledge impacts on their attitudes, perceptions and purchasing behaviour in the field. Furthermore, it highlights changes in consumer knowledge, perceptions, attitudes and purchasing behaviour over time, indicating to the rate of acceptance of these foods. In addition, it also supplies guidelines for future marketing communication on such food.

Thesis (MTech. degree in Business Information Systems.)--Tshwane University of Technology, 2010. / The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between strategic information system planning (SISP) and environmental uncertainty in the South African small, micro and medium enterprises (SMME) sector. The independent variable was strategic information systems planning process (SISPP) with five phases, namely: strategic awareness, situation analysis, strategy conception, strategy formulation and strategy implementation. The results suggested that some SISPP phases are more effective in different environments, and these phases can lead to SISPS. For example, strategy implementation was fully supported in the context of this study, which means that more strategy implementation leads to SISPS in SMMEs. The South African SMME sector is not immune to the influence of environmental uncertainty.