At the time this study was conducted, Queensland police officers were offered a five year age range in which retirement was possible. These officers were permitted to retire from age 55 and were forced to retire at age 60. The Queensland Police Service had previously identified that only 13% of all police officers were staying in their employment until the mandatory retirement age of 60. Retirement of these officers at the earliest possible opportunity presented a considerable loss of human resource investment. This study was undertaken to investigate some possible triggers influencing the decision to retire. Three specific research questions associated with the retirement intentions of Queensland police officers of the baby-boomer generation were formulated and subsequently investigated. These questions were: * How do the demographic characteristics of individual police officers relate to their retirement intentions? * What are the triggers that are associated with the retirement age intentions of baby-boomer police officers in Queensland? and, * How are these triggers associated with officers' intentions to retire earlier or later? While considerable work had been previously done on retirement triggers, the issue of police retirement triggers is under-researched. The situation was further compounded by the fact that the major study of police retirement was American, with retirement in that system based on years of service, and not age as in Australia. A list of possible retirement triggers was compiled from the literature and then focus groups of Queensland police officers were used to discuss some aspects of these possible retirement triggers and generate others that were specific to the Queensland Police Service. The study obtained the views of 641 members of the cohort through a questionnaire and utilised a quantitative research methodology to achieve findings. Demographic aspects showed little overall influence on an officer's retirement age decision. The demographic items that did have a direct association with retirement intentions were gender, length of service, and the method of admission to the organisation. Female officers, officers with the greatest length of service and those admitted to the organisation as Cadets were more likely to seek earlier retirement, that is retirement at or soon after age fifty-five. Whilst not conclusive, the education level of the individual indicated a trend towards later retirement for those with higher levels of education. Importantly, operational status, shift worker status, rank, and qualification for promotion had no association with the retirement decision. A factor analysis of the questionnaire items used in the study identified five factors, of which four contributed significantly to a police officer's retirement timing decision at the later end of the retirement window spectrum. These factors were 'appropriateness', 'worth and belonging', 'influences and relationships' and 'financial' issues. A fifth factor 'flexibility' was also determined but found to have no statistical significance. Three recommendations were made from this study: the formation of a Queensland Police Service alumni; the adoption of a n employment re-engagement policy called 'procruiting'; and the introduction of an assisted retirement education package for exiting members.

According to the Children's Bureau of Taiwan (2007), the number of Taiwanese children abused and neglected sharply increased from 6,059 to 10,094 between 2000 and 2006. Reports of abused and neglected children also rose from 8,494 to 13,986 in that period. This followed enactment of the Children and Youth Welfare Law in 2003 imposing a range of health, education and social welfare professionals, including nurses, the statutory duty to report suspected child abuse and neglect. Previous studies in Taiwan have indicated that despite the legislation, a range of factors continue to act against nurses reporting child abuse and neglect (CAN) cases according to the law. Previous research had examined factors that influence CAN reporting by health, education, and welfare professionals including registered nurses in Taiwan. The study herein sought to extend knowledge of these factors by identifying and assessing nurses' self-efficacy as a prime factor influencing professional commitment to legal reporting of CAN. The aims of this research were to: (1) examine influencing factors of nurses' likelihood to report CAN in Taiwanese health care settings, and (2) develop and test a new instrument Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Self Efficacy (CANRSE) to measure nurses' self-efficacy in CAN reporting. The research was conducted in two phases. Phase one investigated nurses' experience with CAN reporting and examined relationships between nurses' perceptions, attitudes, knowledge, and likelihood to report CAN cases. Two hundred and thirty-eight nurses from emergency departments, paediatric units and community centres in Taiwan completed a survey. The results showed that using a series of vignettes, a significant relationship existed between the likelihood to report CAN and perception, attitude, and knowledge. Notably, perception was the most significant variable in predicting nurses' likelihood to report CAN cases. Findings indicated nurses had poor perceptions of recognizing and reporting CAN and lacked faith in child protection services. Knowledge of Taiwanese CAN reporting laws was poor. In general, most nurses believed that they needed more training courses on the recognition and reporting of CAN. These findings, in particular the importance of perceptions of legal reporting behaviour, were worthy of further investigation. In Phase two, a measure of CANRSE was developed and tested. Data were collected from 496 nurses working in Taiwanese health care settings. Development of the CANRSE was guided by an extensive literature review, findings from Phase one of the study and by an expert panel. The CANRSE consisted of five sections: (1) demographic information, (2) efficacy-expectation for suspected cases, (3) efficacy-expectation for known cases, (4) outcome-expectation of CAN reporting, and (5) likelihood to report CAN. The influence of nurses' self-efficacy on their likelihood to report CAN cases was also analysed. Structure of the CANRSE was supported by structural equation modeling using AMOS 6.0. Additionally, correlation and regression analyses were applied to investigate the validity and reliability of the CANRSE. CANRSE met accepted psychometric standards for reliability and validity in this study. Nurses' CAN self-efficacy yielded strong prediction over personal characteristics, experience as a nurse, experience as a parent, and age. Thus, the research provides an important contribution to the literature relating to mandatory reporting by professional groups in particular nurses. It was the first research to successfully develop a new instrument to evaluate nurses' selfefficacy in CAN reporting. The findings provide a basis for understanding the influence of Taiwanese nurses' decision making for CAN reporting. Further research can extend the scope of CAN training programs and their evaluation.

Thesis (Ed.D.) -- Teachers College, Columbia University, 1991. / Typescript; issued also on microfilm. Sponsor: Richard Anderson. Dissertation Committee: Thomas A. Leemon. Includes bibliographical references: (leaves 124-128).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--York University, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 416-438). Also available on the Internet.

Syfte: År 2010 avskaffades revisionsplikten för de minsta företagen i Sverige. Trots att det har gått fyra år sedan dess, så är Sverige ett av de länder som har de lägsta gränsvärdena för frivillig revision i Europa. År 2013 presenterade EU ett nytt direktiv gällande dessa gränsvärden. Det pågår sedan dess diskussioner kring revisionsplikten och regeringen har startat upp en utredning huruvida EU:s redovisningsdirektiv skall införas i Sverige eller inte. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka vilka effekter en höjning av gränsvärdena för frivillig revision kan få på redovisningen. Syftet med studien är även att visa vilka fördelar och nackdelar som frivillig revision kan medföra. Metod: Studien har en induktiv ansats med en kvalitativ metod. Primärdata har samlats in via semistrukturerade intervjuer med auktoriserade revisorer, auktoriserade redovisningskonsulter samt anställda på Bolagsverket och Skatteverket. Detta empiriska material har vi sedan analyserat och återkopplat till tidigare studier för att kunna besvara vår frågeställning. Resultat & slutsats: Även om det är svårt att säga vilka exakta effekter en friare revisionsplikt kan få på den svenska redovisningen, visar resultatet av vår studie att höjda gränsvärden kan leda till en försämrad redovisningskvalitet och ett ökat skattefusk. Respondenterna uttrycker ingen särskild oro över att deras arbete kommer påverkas till följd av en friare revisionsplikt, förutom att gällande lagar kommer att behöva förändras om gränsvärdena för frivillig revision höjs. Förslag till fortsatt forskning: Eftersom det i dagsläget har visat sig svårt att uppmäta tydliga effekter av frivillig revision skulle en liknande studie med fördel kunna genomföras några år efter att en höjning av gränsvärdena skett, för att få tydligare resultat. Då med ett större urval av respondenter för att få in fler synvinklar och därmed en bredare empiri. Uppsatsens bidrag: Studien har bland annat identifierat fördelar som revision innebär för företag och dess intressenter samt visat vilka effekter en friare revisionsplikt kan få på företagens redovisning. Studien kan därför vara till hjälp för företag som överväger att välja bort revision. / Aim: In the year 2010 Sweden abolished mandatory audit for the smallest companies in the country. After four years Sweden still has the lowest thresholds for voluntary audit in Europe. In the year 2013 the European Union presented a new directive concerning these thresholds. Since this new directive there has been discussions about mandatory audit and the Swedish government has started an investigation, whether the directive from the European Union shall be implemented in Sweden or not. This study aims to examine the impact increased thresholds will have on accounting. The study also aims to show the advantages and disadvantages that voluntary audit may result in. Method: This study has an inductive approach with a qualitative research method. The primary data was collected through semi-structured interviews with authorized auditors, authorized accountants and employees at Bolagsverket and Skatteverket. This empirical data was then analyzed and compared with earlier studies to answer our research question. Result & Conclusions: This study shows that increased thresholds may impact the quality of accounting, making it less reliable and useful, and it will also increase tax evasions. Even though it is complicated to say that these impacts only occur because of increased thresholds. The respondents express no particular concern if the thresholds are to be raised, since this will have very little impact on their work situation, except that existing laws will need to be looked over.   Suggestions for future research: We have determined that since only a short time has passed, it is difficult to see any clear results of voluntary audit. A proposal for future research in this area is therefor to repeat this study a couple of years after the thresholds have been increased to establish more reliable results. Then, by using a larger sample of respondents, being able to present more opinions and thus a wider empirical point of view. Contribution of the thesis: This study has contributed to knowledge that can be of use for those companies that are considering whether or not they should implement voluntary audit. The study has among other things identified benefits of auditing and the impact increased thresholds may have on accounting.

Dans cette thèse, nous nous intéressons au contrôle d’accès obligatoire dans les serveurs d’applications Web. Nous présentons une approche de protection obligatoire fondée sur un modèle abstrait d’applications Web. Les modèles d’applications Web existants, comme par exemple SOA peuvent être représentés par ce modèle abstrait d’application. Notre protection obligatoire s’appuie sur un langage de protection dédié permettant d’exprimer les besoins en terme de contrôle d’accès au sein d’un serveur d’application Web. Ce langage de protection utilise notre modèle d’application pour contrôler de manière efficace les accès des sujets aux objets de l’applications Web. Nous établissons également une méthode de calcul automatisé des politiques de sécurité qui facilite donc l’administration de la protection obligatoire proposée. Une implémentation sur des environnements Microsoft basés sur le serveur Web IIS et le canevas .Net est présentée. La solution est indépendante des applications Web protégées car elle repose sur l’utilisation d’un adaptateur applicatif pour s’interfacer avec n’importe quelle application. Celle-ci est fonctionnelle sur des environnements de workflow de la société QualNet ayant co-financée cette thèse. Les expérimentations menées montrent que notre protection obligatoire supporte des environnements à grande échelle et impose une élévation faible du temps de traitement, de l’ordre de 5%, qui diminue lorsque la taille des applications augmente. / This thesis focuses on mandatory access control in Web applications server. We present a novel approach of mandatory protection based on an abstract Web application model. Existing models of Web applications such as SOA fit with our abstract model. Our mandatory protection uses a dedicated language that allows to express the security requirements of a Web application. This dedicated protection language uses our Web application model to control efficiently the accesses of the subjects to the objects of a Web application. We establish a method to automatically compute the requested security policies facilitating thus the administration of the mandatory protection. An implementation on Microsoft-based environments uses the IIS Web server and the .Net Framework. The solution is independent from the Web applications to protect since it uses an application adaptor to interface our mandatory protection with the applications. This implementation is fully running on the workflow environments from the QualNet society, that cofunded this Ph.D thesis. Experiments show that our mandatory protection supports large scale environments since the overhead is near to 5 % and decreases when the size of the application increases.

xvii, 232 p. : ill. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / Beginning in the 1970s, states adopted sentencing reforms as a response to a growing number of concerns in the criminal justice system. These reforms included sentencing guidelines, statutory presumptive sentencing, determinate sentencing, truth in sentencing, and three strikes laws. Each reform has become an important part of the judicial system. These "fixed" reforms shifted sentencing from the indeterminate-rehabilitation sentencing model to a more predetermined-deterrence model. The reforms' main purpose is to limit judicial discretion by insuring convicted felons receive a reasonably standard sentence depending on the crime they committed. Few studies have attempted to systematically answer the question of whether these reforms produced the outcomes stated by their supporters. This analysis utilizes a social chain theory, which suggests the socio-political context of the law and order movement interacted with structural-procedural changes in the justice system that led to unintended consequences. The study assesses the effects of sentencing reforms on shifts in year-to-year changes in general incarceration rates, changes in the racial/ethnic composition of imprisonment, and changes in the gender composition of imprisonment. It also assesses the social, political, and demographic characteristics of states that change the rate of adoption of sentencing reforms across all 50 states from the years 1965 to 2008 on the aggregate state level. This study finds, counter to most previous findings, that sentencing reforms are associated with higher rates of imprisonment. The results further suggest mechanisms are at work that unintentionally "target" historically disadvantaged groups, perpetuating inequalities within the criminal justice system instead of easing them. This result is counter to some of the policies' stated goals. Conversely, the results suggest that drug arrest rates and not sentencing reforms are associated with the narrowing gender gap in imprisonment. Finally, the results indicate that state-level characteristics are important in predicting which states will adopt sentencing reforms. From a policy perspective, rapid changes in the composition of imprisonment can be a logistical and financial burden, and these results shed light onto the specific mechanisms causing a portion of the change. This dissertation includes previously unpublished co-authored material. / Committee in charge: Robert O Brien, Chairperson, Sociology; Jean Stockard, Member, Planning Public Policy & Mgmt; James Elliott, Member, Sociology; Hill Walker, Outside Member, Special Education and Clinical Sciences

Mandatory rules in the Civil Code Abstract The aim of this diploma thesis entitled "Mandatory rules in the Civil Code" is to analyse the mandatory rules in Act No. 89/2012 Coll., the Civil Code (hereinafter "CC"), in terms of their theoretical definition, the way of their identification and occurrence. The work is therefore systematically divided into three parts. The first part deals with the conceptual and contentual definition of the mandatory rules and defines the differences between the mandatory and non-mandatory rules. Various types of mandatory rules are also discussed, with particular emphasis being placed on analysing the category of so-called relatively mandatory rules. In this part, the author profoundly deals with a division of rules into mandatory and non-mandatory. Moreover, the author discusses the pivotal principle of private law - the principle of autonomy of will. On one hand, this principle mirrors the non-mandatory rules of the Civil Code. On the other hand, it is pointed out to the necessity of limiting the autonomy of the will through the mandatory rules. The second part of the diploma thesis is devoted to the long-standing problem of identifying a mandatory rule. First of all, the legislative techniques used by the legislator for distinguishing mandatory and non-mandatory rules are...

abstract: This dissertation examines whether participatory budgeting (PB) processes, as a case of participatory governance and an innovative approach to local governance, promote inclusive and deliberative government decision-making and social justice outcomes. The first chapter introduces the case of the dissertation, PB in the city of Seoul, South Korea. It reviews the history of PB and the literature on PB in South Korea and discusses three issues that arise when implementing legally mandated PB. The second chapter explores whether inclusive PB processes redistribute financial resources even without the presence of explicit equity criteria, using the last four years of PB resource allocation data and employing multi-level statistical analysis. The findings show that having a more inclusive process to encourage citizen participation helps poorer districts to win more resources than wealthier ones. The third chapter is a follow-up exploratory study; the possible reasons behind the redistributive effects of PB are discussed using interview data with PB participants. The findings suggest that the PB process could have been redistributive because it provided an opportunity for the people living in the comparatively poorer neighborhoods to participate in the government decision-making process. Additionally, when scoring proposals, participants valued ‘needs’ and ‘urgency’ as the most important criteria. The last chapter examines the 32 PB meetings in order to find the combinations of conditions that lead to a deliberative participatory process, employing qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). This dissertation contributes to the field of public management, and particularly participatory governance by providing a review of the literature on PB in South Korea, presenting empirical evidence on the redistributive effect of PB without explicit equity criteria, and finding the combinations of meeting conditions that could be used to promote deliberation in the context of PB. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Public Administration and Policy 2018

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