Master of Science / Department of Biological & Agricultural Engineering / Stacy Lewis Hutchinson / In 2000, world leaders adopted the United Nations Millennium Declaration in hopes of drastically reducing the amount of people affected by poverty by 2015. One of the goals of the report pledged to “halve the proportion of people who are unable to reach or afford safe drinking water” (Juma, et al., 2001). For developing countries, where the water crisis is most concentrated, the achievement of this goal is nowhere close to being realized. With a world that is becoming increasingly interconnected, the ability to generate change on a global scale and in areas with the most need is attainable. The focus of engineering education today should prepare students to provide sustainable solutions worldwide. Engineering curricula, especially in regions of the world with standardized tests (e.g. United States and Canada) look toward preparing students for licensure. However, a need for more diversified, interdisciplinary education would benefit the future success of engineering designs. Knowledge of appropriate social, economic, and environmental needs must be considered to ensure sustainability and effectiveness of solutions. A case study focused on water quality tests located in Nyeri, Kenya enforces the importance of international pre-professional engineering experience. The study also demonstrates the need for increased efforts needed to achieve the drinking water target outlined by the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. In order for students to be successful, education must be targeted to cover both cultural and technological aspects of designing and especially the externalities associated with international design.

Purpose: The threefold purpose of this research is to identify the essential antecedents of cultural competence as identified by international nurse researchers, to compare the content of the extant cultural competence instruments to these antecedents and to potentially identify gaps in their conceptualization. A secondary aim of this research is to initiate validation of Harper's model of ethical multiculturalism. Conceptual Basis: The model of ethical multiculturalism depicts the attributes of ethical multiculturalism as the fulcrum of a balance between two ethical philosophies of fundamentalism and relativism. The attributes of moral reasoning, beneficence/nonmaleficence, respect for persons and communities, and cultural competence form the pyramidal fulcrum. The antecedents form the base of the pyramid and include cultural awareness, culture knowledge, cultural sensitivity, cultural encounters, cultural skill and understanding of ethical principles. Methodology: An on-line Delphi method was conducted with 35 international nurse researchers identified through published research, university directories, and professional organizations. Consensus was reached after two rounds. Following the Delphi rounds, sixteen members of the expert panel participated in an on-line focus group to validate results of the Delphi and discuss cultural competence in the international arena. Findings: Eighty antecedents of cultural competence were identified. Focus group discussion validated findings of the Delphi. Consensual thematic analysis of the focus group transcripts resulted in six themes: chimerical, contact, contextual, collaboration, connections, and considering impact. The Transcultural Self-Efficacy Tool (TSET) contained the most antecedents identified by the expert panel. Conclusions: Cultural competence is a process, not an outcome, and must be considered from the perspective of the recipient of care or research participant. Nurses must strive to deliver culturally acceptable care. The model of ethical multiculturalism is revised to include cultural desire as an antecedent. Nurses must understand the impact of globalization on individual health and care delivery. Implications for Nursing: Further testing of cultural competence instruments is needed to determine the correlation of self-efficacy with behavior, self-assessment with client assessment, and cultural competence with client outcomes. In education, research is needed to determine the most effective methods of teaching cultural competence. Increased recruitment of minorities into nursing programs is warranted. In practice, nurses must be prepared to provide language assistance as needed, recruitment and hiring of minorities must be increased, and minority thresholds must be used to determine cultural knowledge content for organizations.

Diploma thesis includes information about percentages, mathematical olympiad, mathematical corresponding seminars and PISA ant TIMSS tests. The first, theoretical part describes historical development of mathematical olympiad and its organization, the history of mathematical corresponding seminars and list of current seminars for primary school students. The second part of the diploma thesis consists of the collection of tasks examples with percentages that appear in mathematical olympiad, mathematical corresponding seminars and PISA and TIMSS tests.

Using eighth-grade mathematics scores from TIMSS 2003, a large-scale international achievement assessment database, this study investigated correlates of math achievement in two developed countries, Canada and the United States and two developing countries, Egypt and South Africa. Variation in math achievement within and between schools for individual countries was accounted for by a series of two-level HLM models. Specifically, there were five sets of HLM models representing student background, home resources, instructional practices, teacher background, and school background related factors. In addition, a final model was built by including all the statistically significant predictors in earlier models to predict math achievement. Findings from this study suggested that whereas the instructional practices model worked the best for the United States and the teacher background model served as the most efficient and parsimonious model for predicting math achievement in Egypt, the final model served as the best model for predicting math achievement in Canada and South Africa. These findings provide empirical evidence that different models are needed to account for factors related to achievement in different countries. This study, therefore, highlights the importance that policy makers and educators from developing countries should not base their educational decisions and educational reform projects solely on research findings of developed countries. Rather, they need to use their country-specific findings to support their educational decisions. This study also provides a methodological framework for applied researchers to evaluate the effects of background and contextual factors on students' math achievement

An overview of the political activity of Mexican university students during the 1968 disturbances in Mexico was compared with data taken from a 1964 attitudinal survey conducted by the International Research Associates, Incorporated of university students from nine Mexican universities in an attempt to find possible trends and attitudes that could have predicted the 1968 and subsequent riots. The population for the analysis came from three of the nine universities based on the levels of activity shown during the 1968 riots ranging from most active to least active. Three main variables; activism as of 1968, ideological self-designation as of 1964 and degrees of discrepancy as of 1964 were cross-tabulated with sex, .age, father's education and community size. Students who in 1964 saw themselves as falling to the extreme left of the ideological scale were found to be in the more active university in 1968. The majority of students in 1964 did not view the government and accompanying institutions as being that far from their own ideological views. The most active university had the largest percentage of students in the 31 or older category. Sex held no significance bearing on activism. Students coming from populations of less than 10,000 were found to be more highly concentrated in the most active university and those students whose father had completed college were also concentrated in the more active university.

<p>This doctoral dissertation includes two main works and a comprehensive summary:</p><p>Jedeskog, G. 1996: Lärare vid datorn. Sju högstadielärares undervisning med datorer 1984-1994. (Teachers at Computers. Seven upper compulsory school teachers´ teaching with computers in 1984-1994.) SkapandeVetande, Linköpings universitet. ISBN 91-7871-664-0. (in Swedish)</p><p>Jedeskog, G. 2000: Ny i kl@ssen. Förhållandet mellan lärarroll och datoranvändning beskrivet i internationell forskning. (New in Cl@ss. The relationship between computers and the role of the teacher, as described ininternational research.) ISBN 91-646-1473-5. (in Swedish)</p><p>The comprehensive summary is written in English: Teachers and Computers, Uppsala University, Department of Educatiom 48 pp. ISBN 91-506-1439-8.</p><p>The first work was presented and defended in 1996. The second work, New in Cl@ss, is summarised here:</p><p>For about fifteen years now, there have been computers in the schools meant for instructional use. The focus of this study is to describe and analyse how the relationship between computers and the role of the teacher has been treated in international scholarly literature, 1988-1998. The empirical study has two aims:</p><p>To outline and analyse the contents of the texts with regard to what is happening to the role of the teacher, i.e.the work and deeds of the teacher, in a time when computers and IT are being introduced and used, or not used,in teaching.</p><p>To outline and analyse, using the selected texts, how the research field of computers and the role of the teacheris now being moulded.</p><p>The analysis of the texts is based on three theoretical platforms; House's innovation theory, the actors-networktheory and a micropolitical perspective. In these theories the importance of power, participation and conflict isemphasised.</p><p>Results show that three variants of the role of the teacher in connection with computer usage stand out: theteacher as a link between the pupil and the computer, as a technician and delegating routine work to thecomputer.</p><p>The role of the computer can be observed as a rival, as an 'alarm clock', as a mediator of contacts, as anobstacle to contacts and as a replacement for the school.</p><p>An analysis of the research area shows that it is possible to distinguish four categories of texts; texts with noreference to earlier research and texts with references to research on processes of innovation and reform, onknowledge and learning and on relationship between school and society.</p>

This doctoral dissertation includes two main works and a comprehensive summary: Jedeskog, G. 1996: Lärare vid datorn. Sju högstadielärares undervisning med datorer 1984-1994. (Teachers at Computers. Seven upper compulsory school teachers´ teaching with computers in 1984-1994.) SkapandeVetande, Linköpings universitet. ISBN 91-7871-664-0. (in Swedish) Jedeskog, G. 2000: Ny i kl@ssen. Förhållandet mellan lärarroll och datoranvändning beskrivet i internationell forskning. (New in Cl@ss. The relationship between computers and the role of the teacher, as described ininternational research.) ISBN 91-646-1473-5. (in Swedish) The comprehensive summary is written in English: Teachers and Computers, Uppsala University, Department of Educatiom 48 pp. ISBN 91-506-1439-8. The first work was presented and defended in 1996. The second work, New in Cl@ss, is summarised here: For about fifteen years now, there have been computers in the schools meant for instructional use. The focus of this study is to describe and analyse how the relationship between computers and the role of the teacher has been treated in international scholarly literature, 1988-1998. The empirical study has two aims: To outline and analyse the contents of the texts with regard to what is happening to the role of the teacher, i.e.the work and deeds of the teacher, in a time when computers and IT are being introduced and used, or not used,in teaching. To outline and analyse, using the selected texts, how the research field of computers and the role of the teacheris now being moulded. The analysis of the texts is based on three theoretical platforms; House's innovation theory, the actors-networktheory and a micropolitical perspective. In these theories the importance of power, participation and conflict isemphasised. Results show that three variants of the role of the teacher in connection with computer usage stand out: theteacher as a link between the pupil and the computer, as a technician and delegating routine work to thecomputer. The role of the computer can be observed as a rival, as an 'alarm clock', as a mediator of contacts, as anobstacle to contacts and as a replacement for the school. An analysis of the research area shows that it is possible to distinguish four categories of texts; texts with noreference to earlier research and texts with references to research on processes of innovation and reform, onknowledge and learning and on relationship between school and society.

Esta dissertação tem como objeto os estudos sobre gênero em pesquisas internacionais. Foram explorados 50 textos selecionados a partir de uma amostra de mil documentos oriundos da biblioteca virtual da Universidade de Sydney na Austrália. O estudo de natureza bibliográfica utilizou mapas conceituais e desenvolveu análises indutivas tendo com objetivo geral estudar como gênero tem sido abordado nas pesquisas internacionais de modo a compreender o desenvolvimento do conceito de gênero, as argumentações relacionadas a este conceito nos estudos investigados. A dissertação teve como objetivos específicos: Descrever os conceitos de gênero e suas interconexões em termos teóricos-epistemológicos de modo a construir uma linha do tempo da última década; Identificar e analisar as principais questões que orientaram as pesquisas em termos das escolhas de metodologias, instrumentos de coleta, formas de análise dos dados e pertinência teórica; Estabelecer a relação entre gênero e educação; analisar e descrever os cinco principais autores recorrentes nos textos, mostrando de que modo descrevem gênero levantando as suas contribuições para os estudos de gênero investigados. Os resultados apontam para: uma super-representação de trabalhos originários dos países ocidentais e uma sub-representação nos países do sul, como assinala Connell (2007); quanto as abordagens metodológicas visualiza-se uma tendência em utilizarem pesquisas quantitativas mais que qualitativas assim como as perspectivas binárias/dualistas em detrimento às perspectivas pós-estruturalista como suporte analítico-interpretativo; dentre as 2.066 citações de teóricos, cinco autores sobressaem nos estudos, são eles: Susan Moller Okin, Raewyn Connell, Madeleine Arnot, Bronwyn Davies e Pierre Bourdieu. Finalmente, este estudo denuncia a necessidade de pesquisas mais comprometida com o enfrentamento da desigualdades de gênero, em especial as minorias silenciadas pelas pesquisas examinadas, onde o mundo foi dividido entre homens e mulheres, na perspectiva de uma ordenação única de gênero, sem levar em conta as diferentes variações, interações e opções de gênero existentes na sociedade contemporânea. / This paper has as its object the study of gender in international research. It was explored 50 texts selected from a sample of one thousand documents from the virtual library of the University of Sydney in Australia. The study has a bibliographic nature and uses conceptual maps as research tools and the analyzes developed used inductive method. The main purpose was to study how gender has been addressed in international research in order to understand the development of the concept of gender, the arguments related to this concept in studies investigated. The dissertation has the following especific objectives: Describe the concepts of gender and their theoretical-epistemological interconnections in order to construct a timeline of the last decade; Identify and analyze the main research questions that guided the choices in terms of methodologies, research tools, methods of collecting and analysis of the data and its theoretical relevance; Establish the relationship between gender and education; Analyze and describe the five main authors used as theoretical bases in the researcher studied, showing how gender issues was raised, describe and their contributions to the studies investigated. The results indicate: An over representation of work originating from Western countries and an underrepresentation in the southern countries, as pointed Connell (2007); The methodological approaches visualized a pattern of using more quantitative than qualitative research as well as binary / dualistic perspectives in detriment to poststructuralist approach; The analytical and interpretatived lines of thoughts used assume that among the 2066 citations of theorists, five authors excel in the studies, they are: Susan Moller Okin, Raewyn Connell, Madeleine Arnot, Bronwyn Davies and Pierre Bourdieu. Finally, this study reveals the need for more research committed to tackling gender inequalities, especially, for the silenced minorities leaved out of the research examined. Those studies portraited a world divided between men and women, from the perspective of a single gender order without taking into account the different gender variations, options and interactions existing in the contemporary society.

Esta dissertação tem como objeto os estudos sobre gênero em pesquisas internacionais. Foram explorados 50 textos selecionados a partir de uma amostra de mil documentos oriundos da biblioteca virtual da Universidade de Sydney na Austrália. O estudo de natureza bibliográfica utilizou mapas conceituais e desenvolveu análises indutivas tendo com objetivo geral estudar como gênero tem sido abordado nas pesquisas internacionais de modo a compreender o desenvolvimento do conceito de gênero, as argumentações relacionadas a este conceito nos estudos investigados. A dissertação teve como objetivos específicos: Descrever os conceitos de gênero e suas interconexões em termos teóricos-epistemológicos de modo a construir uma linha do tempo da última década; Identificar e analisar as principais questões que orientaram as pesquisas em termos das escolhas de metodologias, instrumentos de coleta, formas de análise dos dados e pertinência teórica; Estabelecer a relação entre gênero e educação; analisar e descrever os cinco principais autores recorrentes nos textos, mostrando de que modo descrevem gênero levantando as suas contribuições para os estudos de gênero investigados. Os resultados apontam para: uma super-representação de trabalhos originários dos países ocidentais e uma sub-representação nos países do sul, como assinala Connell (2007); quanto as abordagens metodológicas visualiza-se uma tendência em utilizarem pesquisas quantitativas mais que qualitativas assim como as perspectivas binárias/dualistas em detrimento às perspectivas pós-estruturalista como suporte analítico-interpretativo; dentre as 2.066 citações de teóricos, cinco autores sobressaem nos estudos, são eles: Susan Moller Okin, Raewyn Connell, Madeleine Arnot, Bronwyn Davies e Pierre Bourdieu. Finalmente, este estudo denuncia a necessidade de pesquisas mais comprometida com o enfrentamento da desigualdades de gênero, em especial as minorias silenciadas pelas pesquisas examinadas, onde o mundo foi dividido entre homens e mulheres, na perspectiva de uma ordenação única de gênero, sem levar em conta as diferentes variações, interações e opções de gênero existentes na sociedade contemporânea. / This paper has as its object the study of gender in international research. It was explored 50 texts selected from a sample of one thousand documents from the virtual library of the University of Sydney in Australia. The study has a bibliographic nature and uses conceptual maps as research tools and the analyzes developed used inductive method. The main purpose was to study how gender has been addressed in international research in order to understand the development of the concept of gender, the arguments related to this concept in studies investigated. The dissertation has the following especific objectives: Describe the concepts of gender and their theoretical-epistemological interconnections in order to construct a timeline of the last decade; Identify and analyze the main research questions that guided the choices in terms of methodologies, research tools, methods of collecting and analysis of the data and its theoretical relevance; Establish the relationship between gender and education; Analyze and describe the five main authors used as theoretical bases in the researcher studied, showing how gender issues was raised, describe and their contributions to the studies investigated. The results indicate: An over representation of work originating from Western countries and an underrepresentation in the southern countries, as pointed Connell (2007); The methodological approaches visualized a pattern of using more quantitative than qualitative research as well as binary / dualistic perspectives in detriment to poststructuralist approach; The analytical and interpretatived lines of thoughts used assume that among the 2066 citations of theorists, five authors excel in the studies, they are: Susan Moller Okin, Raewyn Connell, Madeleine Arnot, Bronwyn Davies and Pierre Bourdieu. Finally, this study reveals the need for more research committed to tackling gender inequalities, especially, for the silenced minorities leaved out of the research examined. Those studies portraited a world divided between men and women, from the perspective of a single gender order without taking into account the different gender variations, options and interactions existing in the contemporary society.

Masters of Science / In 1976 Rozeff and Kinney found that seasonality exists in the monthly rates of return on the New York Stock Exchange with peak periods in January. By making use of this information and the fact that the rates of return lag real activity by one month, Chang en Pinegar (1986) indicated that rates of return unidirectionally predict future growth rates in industrial production for large companies. They also found that the seasonal growth rates in industrial production partially reflect the January seasonals in the rates of return for small companies. This is inconsistent with the efficient market hypothesis. Altough numerous studies in South Africa have been conducted on the efficiency of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, no one has departed from the viewpoint of seasonality. The aim of this study is to investigate the efficiency of the Johannesburg stock Exchange with respect to seasonality in industrial production. It will be shown that there is no relationship between rates of return and real activity in the majority of sectors. The clothing sector is inefficient in the sense that real activity unidirectionally predicts rates of return three months in advance. At a six months lag period there are strong relationships, in both ways, between rates of return and real activity for this sector, that also implies inefficiency. Lastly it will be indicated that the November peaks on the Johannesburg stock Exchange do not coincide with the January peaks found overseas and that they do not lag real activity by one month. In the international research the attention was mainly focussed on the size of companies and stock price sensitivity to changes in industrial production while in this paper it focusses on different sectors.