Organizations are seen as custodians of portfolio of projects and are increasingly delivering their businesses through multiple complex programs. To be successful in delivering their businesses, these organizations are required to build a project management capability within their structures. Projects today have become far more than solving of technical problems; they have become more of venues for mastering business and change. Project maturity is used as an indication of or a measurement of the organisation’s ability to use projects for different purposes. An organisational Project Management Maturity Assessment is an effective method for establishing a baseline and provides an impetus for organisational change. Project Management Maturity Models are regarded as effective tools for benchmarking and implementing improvements in organisational performance. In this Dissertation, a study in applying project management maturity model to review, assess, and analyze the degree of organizational project management maturity of one of the Professional Soccer clubs participating in the Premier Soccer League (PSL) in South Africa is presented. The project management practices and capabilities of the PSL Soccer clubs are reflected. The purpose of this paper is to not only demonstrate the methodology and results of the assessment, but to also report on the outcome of the study and propose the necessary recommendations for improvement. The research was strictly focused on those Professional Soccer clubs which are participating in the South African PSL. For confidentiality purposes, the club in this dissertation is referred to as “The Club”. There has been no similar study that has been carried out in this field before. Therefore, this study aims to break new grounds in conducting a research of this kind in this specific sports field. The main research question posed in this study is: What is the level of organizational project management maturity of the South African PSL Soccer clubs? This research question is supported by five other sub-questions which are answered in a research chapter dealing with the synthesis and analysis of the research results. These research questions were motivated by the following reasons: Organizations are changing drastically in their fundamental ways of conducting business. This change is happening within a short period of time and at an accelerated pace. This change occurs both structurally, operationally, and culturally in response to factors such as globalization, new technology, competition, and the world economy that is various challenges in the marketplace. Organizations are also under pressure to improve on their performance in order to maintain high levels of competitiveness and continue to be successful in the global marketplace and therefore, consistent improvement on their projects or program delivery is required in order to attain competitive advantage and sustained growth. Therefore, considering the reasons presented above, the researcher found it necessary to evaluate the current levels of project management maturity in the PSL Soccer clubs. In order to achieve the study objectives two models were used as tools to assess the degree of The Club’s project management maturity and further highlighted a recommended path for improvement. Firstly, Organisational Project Management Maturity (OPM3) model, which is a standard developed under the stewardship of Project Management Institute (PMI), was used as the main model. Secondly, the Integrated Management Systems Incorporated’s (IMSI) project management assessment model was also used as a supporting model.

La surface des vignobles mondiaux représente environ 7,9 millions ha, ce qui correspond à une production annuelle de 67 millions de tonnes de baies. La production mondiale annuelle de vins est de l’ordre de 300 millions hl/an. La surface du vignoble français est de 843 000 ha. La viticulture moderne doit affronter trois défis majeurs interdépendants : réduire l’utilisation des produits phytosanitaires, s'adapter au changement climatique, maîtriser la qualité et la typicité pour garder ou conquérir de nouveaux marchés.En 2007, la vigne est devenue la première espèce fruitière pérenne dont le génome a été séquencé. Cette avancée scientifique ouvre de nombreuses perspectives en termes de génomique fonctionnelle (ensemble de méthodes permettant de caractériser la fonction des gènes) et de biologie intégrative (ensemble de méthodes visant à appréhender le fonctionnement global de la plante et ses réponses à l’environnement). Ces perspectives dépendent pour une bonne part de la maîtrise de quantités importantes de données qu’il convient d’organiser et de corréler grâce à des outils informatiques adaptés.Des approches fonctionnelles concernant des gènes candidats et des approches transcriptomiques à haut débit ont permis d’identifier certains gènes ou certaines familles de gènes impliqués dans le développement et la maturation de la baie de raisin, mais au moment où cette thèse a débuté, aucun travail de biologie intégrative n’avait été entrepris.Le travail présenté ici, qui décrit l’obtention et l’analyse de métadonnées transcriptomiques et biochimiques portant sur la réponse de la baie à l’environnement radiatif, s’inscrit dans ce contexte. En procédant à un effeuillage partiel après la véraison, nous avons modulé l’exposition des baies au rayonnement solaire. Ceci a permis d’étudier l’influence du rayonnement (baie exposée, non exposée), de la position de la grappe (est, ouest) et de la position de la baie (à l’extérieur ou à l’intérieur de la grappe). Des baies ont été récoltées à 5 moments différents après l’effeuillage et utilisées pour des analyses métabolomiques et transcriptomiques. Leur contenu en sucres, acides organiques, acides aminés, anthocyanes et flavonols a été analysé par des dosages enzymatiques et par chromatographie liquide à haute performance). L’expression des gènes a été étudiée avec des microarrays représentatifs de l’ensemble du génome de la vigne (29600 gènes) pour les conditions présentant les différences métaboliques les plus marquées (baies exposées, situées à l’ouest et à l’extérieur de la grappe vs baies non exposées, situées à l’est et à l’intérieur de la grappe). Des analyses statistiques et corrélatives ont été conduites pour (a) déterminer les métabolites qui répondent au traitement et les facteurs qui les influencent (b) déterminer les gènes qui répondent aux traitements et ceux qui semblent co-régulés (c) préciser les réseaux de gènes et de métabolites qui semblent reliés. L’effeuillage n’affecte pas la teneur en sucres ou en acide tartrique des baies, il affecte peu les acides aminés, mais il augmente la teneur en flavonols et diminue la teneur en acide malique. Il affecte plus particulièrement les gènes associés au stress abiotique, au métabolisme secondaire, au transport et au métabolisme hormonal. Des expériences complémentaires ont permis d’identifier divers gènes spécifiquement associés à la composante thermique de l’exposition au soleil, parmi lequels des gènes codant pour des HSP, des transporteurs ABC, et des enzymes du métabolisme flavonoïdique. Des réseaux reliant des gènes et des métabolites ont pu être construits, qui associent des métabolites secondaires à des gènes de fonctions connues, ou à de nouveaux gènes candidats dont il conviendra d’étudier la fonction précise. / The total surface of vineyards worldwide is about 7.9 millions ha, which corresponds to an annual production of 67 millions tons berries. The annual world production of wines is about 300 millions hl/year. The French wineyard occupies 843 000 ha, among which 481 000 ha are dedicated to high quality wines (VQPRD) and 362 000 ha to table wines. Modern viticulture must deal with three major and related challenges : reduce the use of organic and inorganic phytochemicals, adapt the vineyard to climatic change and control the quality and the typicity in order to keep or gain new markets.In 2007, the grapevine became the first perennial fruit species whose genome was sequenced. This scientific breakthrough opens new pespectives in terms of functional genomics (set of methods allowing to characterize the function of genes) and integrative biology (set of methods allowing to study the global functioning of the plant and its response to the environment). These perspectives mainly depend on our ability to analyze large sets of data with adequate informatic tools.Functional approaches on candidate genes, and high throughput transcriptomic approaches have allowed to identify some genes or some gene families involved in the development and ripening of the grape berry, but when this Ph. D work started, no paper based on integrative biology was published on grapevine. The present work, which describes the collection and analysis of transcriptomic and metabolomic metadata related to the response of the berry to sun exposure. The exposure of the berries to the sun was controlled through a partial defoliation after veraison. This allowed to study the effects of sun exposure (exposed or shaded berries), of the position of the cluster (east, west) and of the anatomical position of the berry (outside or inside the berry). Berries were collected at 5 different time points after defoliation and used for metabolomic and transcriptomic analysis. Their content in sugars, amino acids, organic acids, anthocyanins and flavonols was analyzed by enzymatic assays and high performance liquid chromatography. For the berries whose metabolic content differed the most (exposed, west and outside berries vs shaded, east and inside berries), gene expression was studied with microarrays bearing a set of probes covering the whole genome of grapevine (29600 genes). Correlative and statistical analysis were conducted in order to (a) determine the metabolites that are the most responsive to the treatment, and the most important factors that control them (b) determine the genes that respond to the treatment and seem to be co-regulated (c) to precise the networks of genes and metabolites which seem related. Defoliation does not affect the sugar and tartaric acid contents, hardly affects amino acids, but it increases flavonol content and decreases malic acid content. It affects more specifically genes associated with abiotic stress, secondary metabolism, transport and hormonal metabolism. Additional experiments allowed us to identify genes that are specifically associated with the thermal component of sun exposure, among which genes encoding HSP, ABC transporters, and enzymes of flavonoid metabolism. Networks relating genes and metabolites could be constructed. These networks associate secondary metabolites with genes of known function and new candidate genes for which the function will have to be precised.

Background: Sweden has a tradition of a concentrated ownership structure where many owners use dual asset classes to maintain corporate control by possessing small portions of the dividend rights. Financial literature has shown that these controlling owners find more incentives to divert corporate resources for private use, at the expense of shareholders. Recent studies also show that involvement in extraction of private benefits leads to long maturity debt as controlling owners avoid frequent monitoring by lenders. As this causes a conflict over corporate debt maturity between controlling and minority shareholders, we investigate if the presence of multiple large shareholders (MLS) mitigates this conflict through control contests. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to examine and analyze how different ownership structures affect the informative environment within a firm. In addition, the thesis investigates how ownership structure affect debt maturity structure and what this mean for large and minority shareholders. Method: The study uses a quantitative approach with panel data of 74 publicly traded non – financial Swedish firms over the period of 2006 – 2014. A deductive approach has been applied in order to explain empirical results from theory and previous literature. Results: We find evidence that controlling owners with a separation in control and cash flow rights tend to insulate themselves through long term debt, creating a bad informative environment with information asymmetry and agency costs. Furthermore, our results show robust evidence that MLS mitigates these problems since control contest between large shareholders leads to a shorter debt maturity, yielding a better informative environment. In addition, our results imply that MLS may be an important factor in facilitating financing as investors associate these firms with less risk of extraction of private benefits.

En France, l'éducation à la biodiversité est devenue une priorité au regard de la dégradation de la diversité biologique. À l'école primaire, elle est rattachée à la fois aux disciplines scientifiques et au développement durable. Les apprentissages attendus suivent essentiellement deux dimensions : les savoirs bio-écologiques et les comportements escomptés reliés à ces savoirs. Cependant, de nombreuses recherches font apparaître l'importance de la dimension affective dans ces apprentissages notamment au regard du rapport émotionnel entretenu avec les objets d'étude. Dans ce contexte, cette thèse explore les dimensions cognitive, affective et comportementale des apprentissages en éducation à la biodiversité. Le champ de recherche est restreint à l'étude d'arthropodes à l'école primaire. Comment la description et l'analyse de trois dimensions : savoir, affectivité et comportements permettent-elles de comprendre la construction des apprentissages en éducation à la biodiversité dans le cas de l'étude d'arthropodes à l'école primaire ? Pour répondre à cette question, le cadre conceptuel s'appuie sur l'analyse des savoirs, sur le modèle de la maturité affective vis-à-vis des objets étudiés et sur l'opérationalisation des comportements par les prises de position et intentions d'agir. Quatre objectifs sont poursuivis pour répondre à cette question : décrire et analyser chacune des trois dimensions, dégager les corrélations éventuelles entre les trois dimensions, identifier des profils particuliers d'apprenants, vérifier les effets d'une étude des arthropodes sur les apprentissages selon ces trois dimensions. La méthodologie utilisée suit deux perspectives : quantitative par une analyse multivariée des réponses à un questionnaire et qualitative par une analyse de réponses à la suite d'entretiens semi-dirigés. Les résultats obtenus ont permis de clarifier les trois dimensions considérées et d'éclairer leur articulation. La mesure et l'analyse de chaque dimension ont montré des différences significatives en fonction du type d'enseignement reçu en classe. Entre les dimensions analysées il existe des corrélations remarquables entre les savoirs, la maturité affective et les comportements. Des profils particuliers d'apprenants inter-reliant savoirs et affectivité ont pu être identifiés, ainsi que des profils généraux impliquant les trois dimensions. Nous avons pu constater l'importance de la relation affective avec les objets d'apprentissage qui, loin de perturber l'appropriation des savoirs aurait au contraire tendance à les renforcer tout en contribuant à construire des comportements citoyens et responsables. / In France, biodiversity education appears as a priority linked with the degradation of biodiversity. The biodiversity education in primary school is attached to both the scientific topics and sustainable development. The expected learning follows two basic dimensions: bio-ecological knowledges and behaviors related to the expected knowledges. However, numerous studies show the significance of affective dimension in learning, especially regarding the emotional relationship with the objects of study. In this context, this thesis explores the cognitive, affective and behavioral learning in biodiversity education. The search field is restricted to the study of arthropods in primary school. How the description and analysis of three dimensions: knowledge, emotions and behaviors allow to understand construction of learning in biodiversity education in the case of the study of arthropods in elementary school? To answer this question, conceptual framework is based on the analysis of knowledges, on the model of emotional maturity with the studied objects and the operationalization of behavior by positions and intentions to act. Four aims are proceeded to answer this issue: describe and analyze each of the three dimensions in the context of the study of arthropods in classroom, identify possible correlations between these three dimensions, identify specific patterns of learners and verify the effects of a study of arthropods on learning, according to these three dimensions. The methodology follows two perspectives: a quantitative multivariate analysis of survey responses and a qualitative analysis of answers during semi-structured interviews. The results of this study have clarified the three-dimensional knowledge, emotions and behaviors and highlighted the interplay between their relations. The measurement and analysis of each dimension pointed significant differences depending on the type of instruction received in classroom. There are significant correlations between scientific knowledge, emotional maturity and behavior according to the type of education. Specific profiles of learners linking knowledges and emotions have been identified, as well as general patterns involving the three dimensions. We noted the importance of emotional relationship with the learning objects that, instead of disrupting the knowledge, would rather tend to strengthen them while contributing to build citizenship and responsible behavior.

ORLIKOVA, V. Evaluation of readiness for admission to primary school. Prague 2015. Diploma thesis. Charles University in Prague. Faculty of Education. Psychology department. The first chapter defines the concept of school maturity and readiness. The second chapter lays down the general criteria of child's maturity for primary school. It deals with pupil's physical, and especially psychical readiness for school. The third chapter describes several means of diagnosing school maturity and readiness by various methods and tests. The empiric part of the thesis deals with awareness of criteria of school maturity at selected schools and the means of their application for evaluation of readiness for admission to school. It also includes characteristics of the selected schools, used methods of research and results of the conducted research. In the last part of the thesis, there is a discussion and a conclusion. KEYWORDS Criteria of maturity, enrollment, evaluation, primary school enrollment

Previous research has uncovered a large, positive and causal link between education and health. This paper is devoted to examining the topic in the former Czechoslovakia. My analysis is conducted on a data set pooled from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). I utilize a continuum of ages at school entry, caused by the use of a single school cut-off, to identify the effect of education on health, which is uniquely created from the PCA method and using 30 questions of the SHARE. Therefore, I apply instrumental variable approach with a month of birth as an instrument for education. The results from the first-stage suggest that the instrument is not valid, since a correlation between the instrumental (Month of birth) and the instrumented variable (education) is very low and insignificant. The results remain insignificant even after adjusting for different measures of education, health, institutional changes or heterogeneous effects. As the most probable cause, I state the inability to control for non-compliers in my instrumental variable regressions. As a consequence, all the results regarding the link between education and health are inconclusive. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Annotation: This thesis deals with the possibilities of using the project to work with adults with learning and mental handicap. In the theoretical part of the work the basic concepts related to mental disability is characterized. Furthermore, it comprises the conditions and possibilities of contemporary care for adults with mental disabilities. The practical part describes the preparation, implementation and evaluation of a specific project of leisure activities for clients of SPMP Modrý klíč School (Blue Key School) named "history windows open".

A dissertation "Integration of a boy with atypical autism into regular kindergarten" has the aim to present a particular process of integration in the regular kindergarten. It gives you a brief characteristic of preschool age, education in preschool age and a procedure of integration and related circumstances. A theoretical part brings you a view of child development in preschool period, specifics of preschool education and a process of integration in the Czech Republic. A research project has the aim to chart how is the integration perceived by three people who are involved in the integration. It is about the attitude of a mother, a headmistress and a class teacher who has been teaching the boy this year. Next there are given the tests that have the aim to determine the boy's current school maturity. These diagnostic tools were used - Orientational graphic test of the school maturity (Jirásek, 1970), Observational scheme for assessment of the school maturity (Kondáš, 1984). Key words individual integration in kindergarten, atypical autism, school maturity

The number of academic institutions offering courses online has increased with courses being offered across almost all academic disciplines. Faculty members are often confronted with the responsibility of converting a face-to-face course to an online course while simultaneously dealing with new technologies and the interrelationship between the technology, content, and pedagogy. Best instructional practices may be applied inconsistently in the online environment due to faculty members' lack of proficiency in implementing such practices. Although Course Management Systems and Web 2.0 technologies make the task seem less daunting, faculty members still need guidance in consistently implementing best practices in online courses. The study examined the problem of academic institutions offering online courses without any validation or tracking processes to ensure course quality. An online instructional maturity model was developed to guide faculty members in implementing learner-centered practices in online courses. Survey methodology was used to collect data on instructional practices being implemented in the North Carolina Community College System. The model was developed from the survey findings using guidelines from the American Psychological Association Learner-Centered Principles, best practices found in the literature, and the People Capability Maturity Model. Feedback from an expert panel was used to refine the model.

Assessments are fundamental to the process improvement program of any organization in the software industry. Assessments provide a view of the state, capability, and maturity of processes in an organization relative to a reference model. Formal assessments are the most recognized, and are comprehensive in nature. Although the depth of their evaluation often results in significant process improvement opportunities, formal assessments are too costly for frequent use by many organizations. The interim between assessments typically leaves these organizations without the currency of process state information necessary to effectively drive continuous process improvement. Mini-assessments have emerged as a solution. This paper presents a mini-assessment approach that offers a substantial cost reduction compared to formal assessments and satisfies the process state currency requirement. A specification of the approach is given, followed by discussions on the process improvement possible with its use, comparisons to other assessment methods, and an example implementation.