Earthquakes are amongst the worst natural disasters on Earth, resulting in an annual average of around 10,000 fatalities last century and progressively increasing in the amount of economic damage they cause, reaching US $20 billion per annum this decade. The mitigation of the unwanted consequences of earthquakes is normally achieved by Risk Management Strategies (RMS), which rely on the development of Earthquake Risk Assessment (ERA) techniques. This thesis aims to develop a framework for ERA for medium seismicity regions that incorporates the spatial aspects of the hazard and risk evaluation. The framework is used to undertake ERA for the island of Cyprus, and the information is used to propose RMS. The ERA framework relies on comprehensive data on the location, value and vulnerability of buildings and the population distribution. These data were collected from the various Cyprus Government Departments. Various hazard and attenuation models are examined, and the effect of their variability is taken into account through Monte Carlo simulations. The estimated annual risk for Cyprus is just below £ 10 million CY. This value was estimated based on the use of the re-appraised historical data for the past-century. Comparisons with other seismic hazard assessment methods, such as recurrence relationships, have revealed that, without a spatial distribution model, such approaches are unsuitable for ERA. Though the maximum intensities predicted are in line with the ones that underpin the aseismic code of Cyprus (CCEAA-CFEE, 1994), the predicted design accelerations are higher than given in the code. Hence, new seismic accelerations are proposed. Despite that, the current reduction in risk is comparable to the additional cost of aseismic design. Seismic retrofitting was also examined and it was found that as part of a general modernisation scheme seismic upgrading is cost effective. However, whatever the state of the building, it is recommended that earthquake insurance should be made mandatory. The current seismic insurance rates appear to be fair, though they seem to underestimate the risk in the areas of high seismicity. The number of likely human losses is also estimated. This study concludes that the result of ERA is heavily dependent on the models and data used, and both require constant updating for the ERA results to remain meaningful.

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The dissertation provides a rich analysis of routines in four case-study companies. Explanations for the behaviour of the firms are developed and provide new building blocks for the understanding of other firms in different circumstances, emphasising empirical evidence, rule-based action and recognising the historical, social and interpretive contexts. Routines are defined as established, significant, sanctioned and recurrent practices within organizations. A number of key features of organizations figure in the analysis: the relationship between structure and agency, the firm's culture and the firm's history. Structures are identified as rules and relationships. The analysis of agency focuses on the position of the agent, the agent's skill and the desire to reduce uncertainty. Technology is an important factor in the analysis. It is (partly) constitutive of the firms, that is it has the power to enact or establish the firms. It cannot do this on its own, it is argued, but, in interacting with other factors, has major implications for the structure and routine behaviour of the firms. The cases suggest that technology has implications for human agency which go beyond the initial intentions of the agents. Technology is not determining but interacts with the other factors in a recursive way and cannot be adequately analysed outside the social system of which it is a part. The primary contribution of the research is the development of a broader concept of routine, in particular, the identification of routine practices at a strategic level and the demonstration that such practices can incorporate change. In addition, the analysis identifies the role of technology in economic change. It adds to the understanding of routines more generally and confirms that an institutional approach to the understanding of firms' behaviour is fruitful and can add to the current repertoire of approaches in Economics.

Knowledge is a strategically important resource to improve competition superiority of an organization. It plays a vital role in healthcare enterprises where knowledge is widely used as the major part of their basic resource. The rapid growing in medical laboratory technology has also enabled this field to be highly professional and knowledge¡Vintensive. To maintain the accuracy and credibility of the documentation and to improve the quality of the service, the personnel in a medical laboratory have to preserve and share their knowledge through the invisible process of creation and dissemination in a highly efficient way. It is considered of great benefit to improve the efficiency of knowledge management in a medical laboratory. We conduct a study to focus on improving the efficiency of knowledge management in the operation of a medical laboratory. We studied the application of knowledge management in a medical laboratory in a military hospital in southern Taiwan. The actuator elements of knowledge management from Arthur Anderson¡¦s model, consisting of leadership, enterprise¡¦s culture, information technology and performance appraisal, were used to construct a questionnaire. The questionnaires were mailed to chiefs of medical laboratories in medical centers. The opinion of personnel in the medical laboratory of a military hospital was surveyed with the questionnaires. We tried to find out the obstacles of promotion, key success factors and case strategy in knowledge management and build up strategy of promotion and performance measurement. Result: I. The current promotion obstacles in the medical laboratory A. The leading three ones are lack of incentive and objective evaluation in performance measurement dimension, lack of community in organizational culture and lack of integration in information technology dimension. B. The least three ones are lack of dedicated team in information technology dimension, unwilling to share in organizational culture dimension and lack of insight in leadership dimension. II. The key success factors in the promotion of knowledge management in the medical laboratory: The priority is the cognition and endorsement of executives, the willingness to communicate and share, and education and training. Finally, a strategic map was constructed according to balanced score card theory in the hope of creation of a reference in knowledge management in the medical laboratory.

Purpose The purpose with this research is to explore what management is doing in order to successfully manage the diversity needs in their workplace and to put up a conceptual model of the initiatives needed in order to reach a successful diversity strategy implementation. The questions are aimed at finding the barriers for managers to implement a successful diversity strategy. Our goal is to understand where the real practitioners of workplace diversity stand in the subject and which areas they wish could be taken a closer look by the researchers. We would also like to explore how mature the companies really are regarding the subject of diversity. Method The method for our thesis was to begin with an exploratory approach in order to gain a better knowledge of the subject and to learn where the literature stands today. To this we have added the collection of qualitative data through interviews made in eight different companies with a total of eleven managers in different levels of the organizations. Once all the data was collected and reviewed we ranked each manager and the company they work for to produce a picture of the diversity maturity present in these companies. Conclusions We have come to the following conclusions - Diversity is a strength and value for companies acting on a global market. - Diversity within a team make the team more productive, solutions are better since the input are from various angles. - To successfully maintain a diverse team puts more demands on the manager to realize that everyone is different and not to handle everyone the same. - There is a high level of maturity found in Swedish managers when it comes to diversity, but areas like training and recruitment policies need to be improved. - Swedish managers have a vast knowledge of what diversity means to their organizational process.

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The objectives of this research were investigate the lived experiences of school-going learners who are HIV-positive; and develop ecosystemic management strategies to help learners who are HIV-positive. The literature research investigation revealed that HIV/AIDS is not just a health problem but also attacks the education system itself. Demand for education is dropping and changing, many educators are ill and dying, and the trauma of loss associated with HIV/AIDS is entrenched in South African classrooms. The HIV/AIDS pandemic has a traumatic impact on all educators and learners. The work of educators both those who are HIV positive and those who have developed full-blown AIDS will be compromised by periods of illness. The pandemic thrives on sexual violence, male domination and child abuse in South Africa. It is the ecosystemic paradigm that helps in seeing the connecting link between family-school-community-society-world or school and peers and this helps in providing a more useful synergistic focus than trying to work in isolation with discrete segments of a microsystem for example, with an individual in isolation. Management strategies for dealing with HIV/AIDS include the notion that achieving sustainability requires bringing together a variety of legitimate stakeholders, drawing on a variety of accepted bodies of knowledge, to negotiate a learning path based on a series of conflict resolutions within ecological constraints. Continual learning based on free flow of information and mutual respect, and investment in effective management of HIV/AIDS are keys to success. The empirical research investigation revealed that psychologically disturbed, emotional well-being, spiritual well-being, physical well-being, social life, their scholastic performance, daily routine, there is a change in their behaviour or health after the HIV- positive status has been revealed, they fear of death, their academic performance at school is affected by absenteeism and lack of concentration, there is absence of strategies to assist learners who are absent frequently because of illness, they loose valued level of functioning, lack assistance at school, fear being discriminated or ridiculed, there is absence v of measures to deal with discrimination at school, there is a lack of information on HIV/AIDS, learners fear disclosing to friends and teachers, there is a lack of communication between parents and infected learners about issues regarding HIV/AIDS. Educators are also affected emotionally, spiritually and physically. They become affected socially and they do not cope with the impact of HIV. The level of communicating the HIV/AIDS pandemic within the schools is low, the principals are not doing much as leaders to supplement this low level of communicating about HIV/AIDS, school policies on HIV/AIDS in these schools do not address issues of support for learners and educators who are incapacitated because of HIV/AIDS, there is no monitoring tool used in these schools to ensure HIV-policy adherence, principals in these schools do not ensure that educators teach learners about matters pertaining to HIV/AIDS, health programmes in these schools do not assist learners living with HIV/AIDS within the school and the level of accepting and accommodating infected learners and the personnel in these schools is low. The level of involvement of community members in matters pertaining to HIV/AIDS in these schools is low. An ecosysternic management system is proposed in this research vi / Thesis (M.Ed.)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2008.

Chronic infection with the hepatitis C virus infection (HCV) affects over 170 million individuals worldwide. In this thesis the natural history and management of hepatitis C in North- East London was investigated. The prevalence of cirrhosis in patients with chronic hepatitis C rises with increasing duration of infection. In Asian patients infected at birth, infection over 60 years causes cirrhosis in 71 % of infected individuals. Since the rate of fibrosis progression in Asian patients is the same as that seen in Caucasian patients, it is likely that similar rates of cirrhosis will be seen in all patients who are infected with HCV for over 60 years. Factors found to be associated with fibrosis progression were:- age and alcohol excess. Insulin resistance was associated with fibrosis progression. However, elevated serum ferritin or hepatiC iron were not. Knowledge of hepatitis C in the East of London was examined and found to be poor despite the Department of Health information campaign. Educational meetings and postal surveys improved the level of knowledge of HCV. However as our group only assessed knowledge immediately after completion of the sessions, such a testing regime does not address long-term knowledge retention. We examined current and novel management strategies for patients with chronic HCV. Current therapy involves pegylated interferon and ribavirin. We found that insulin resistance was a poor predictor of sustained virological response. Chinese herbal treatments for hepatitis C are widely used but poorly studied. Our group designed a randomised controlled double blind study to assess whether Chinese herbal treatment is effective and results from this study show that recruitment and retention in trials of alternative therapies are problematic and that the herbal remedy had little effect on viraemia and quality of life, although liver function tests did improve a little.

<p>The increasing amounts of vehicle emissions and vehicle energy consumption are major problems for the environment and energy conservation. Hybrid vehicles, which have less emissions and energy consumption, play more and more important roles in energy efficiency and sustainable development.</p> <p> </p> <p>The power management strategies of a parallel-through-the-road hybrid architecture vehicle are different from traditional hybrid electric vehicles since one additional dimension is added. To study power management strategies, a simplified model of the vehicle is developed. Four types of power management strategies have been discovered previously based on the simplified model, including dynamic programming model, equivalent consumption minimization strategy, proportional state-of-charge algorithm, and regression model. A new power management strategy, which is artificial neural network model, is developed. All these five power management strategies are compared, and the artificial neural network model is proven to have the best results among the implementable strategies.</p>

The purpose of the present study was to determine how college participants view the success of different conflict management strategies: chance, manipulation, compliance, and confrontation. The success of the conflict management strategies was evaluated by how participants rated female satisfaction, male satisfaction, likelihood of marriage and success of marriage. A MANOVA, and a Roy Bargman step-down procedure were conducted on all dependent variables. A Tukey HSD post hoc test was ran to reveal which conflict management strategies differed from one another. Results indicated that participants thought women were less satisfied than men. For male satisfaction and likelihood of marriage, post hoc testing on the conflict management strategies revealed using compliance was the most satisfying. On the success of marriage variable, participants rated men higher than women on the manipulation and confrontation strategies. The results of the study may be useful in understanding conflict management in dating couples.