Hosting mega events such as athletics and international exposition can brought huge tour business opportunities for the city and also accelerated constructing a modern infrastructure, even promoted a city rank into international fine reputation. Kaohsiung City becomes a host city of world games 2009 luckily which giving the city another transmutes the chance of growth. Kaohsiung City has natural condition to develop sightseeing and tourism, but attaches importance to industry and fishery development as principle over a long period of times. Although the development of light heavy industry has been bringing much employment opportunities for Kaohsiung City, the lack is molding tourism environment, modernizing city construction, internationalization, development of tourism support facilities and city cultural, and haven't had organization and programming of the tourism. The research first reviewed references including the strategic plans used in other countries and then proposed the important factors of tourism development and mega events. Next, it based on the proposal and used Delphi Method to achieve the common consensus of tourism strategy among the government, tourism industries, and the experts in order to develop the complete tourism strategy suitable for Kaohsiung City. The results reveal that the improvement in highest demand for the tourism in Kaohsiung is to integrate the service facilities, transportation services, and marketing individually and to establish cooperative relationship among them. In addition, the related tourism service systems should be well-qualified, enriched, and internationalized. It is also a crucial issue for Kaohsiung city to increase the amounts of visitors for overnight stay. Kaohsiung city government should cooperate with other nearby cities to develop local tour packages for attracting international tourists effectively.

With the growing prominence of global city regions as drivers of today’s economy, there is a need to reposition large urban areas to be competitive in this context. The success of the European trans-national urban model has raised considerable interest in the United States to delineate a similar network of multi-city mega regional systems. It has been predicted that most of the growth in this country in the next 50 years will be concentrated in about 10 such emerging mega-regions. The Texas Triangle is one such mega-region. As much as 70% of the state’s population in 2050 is expected to be concentrated within this triangular mega region, defined by the MSAs of Dallas-Fortworth, Austin-San Marcos, San Antonio and Houston. This study attempts to identify the exact spatial extent of this region based on several parameters, but primarily focusing on a network of natural environmental systems within the proposed Triangle region. / text

The main goal of soybean breeding is to increase yield with improved seed quality characters. The objectives of this thesis were: i) to identify yield quantitative trait loci (QTL) across different mega-environments (ME); ii) to evaluate the relationship between yield and yield components and the co-localization of QTL; iii) to analyze environmental factors that affect QTL expression and identify different ME. Two Canadian x Chinese soybean populations were tested across Canada, northern United States and China. Yield QTL were identified at one, two and three hypothetical ME. Most of them were co-localized with agronomic trait QTL. These results give strong evidence that Canada, northern United States and China are different ME. Novel alleles from plant introductions can favorably contribute directly or indirectly to seed yield and the use of QTL would facilitate their introgression into breeding populations in both North America and China. / National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA)

This thesis, Parallels in portraits of leadership in mega churches of Gauteng (RSA) and Florida (USA), the researcher, studied literature on church leadership with special reference to the leadership of mega churches. He researched issues relating to the nature of church leadership by exploring relevant Bible passages, the lives of certain Bible characters that the Bible presents as good but not perfect leaders, as well as relevant key theological conceptions of leadership. The study accordingly also reviewed different models of church leadership on the hand of a study of some Bible passages and current theological thinking about the matter. The thesis demonstrated that the leadership of mega churches requires certain leadership qualities, values, and competencies. The contribution of the study lies therein that it confirmed and identified through a comparative empirical analysis of details collected through basic research in mega churches of Florida (USA) and Gauteng (RSA) the qualities, values and competencies that are essential for successful leadership of mega churches in very different contexts and church families. The study therefore recommends a desirable leadership style and essential qualities for effective church leadership of mega churches. The study also makes a contribution to the theological understanding of a new but growing church type in urban settings, the mega church; and is of great value to those that lead and study such churches. / PhD, Biblical Studies, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2012

Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) allows the non-invasive measurement of selected biological compounds in vivo. Despite MRS proven potential it is not yet a routine clinical tool operated by clinicians. This is mainly due to the complex procedure of MRS acquisition, lack of standardisation in both acquisition and analysis protocols along with lack of a standard quality control. This thesis intended to address these issues with the focus on four metabolites glutathione, glutamate, glutamine and GABA using MEGA-PRESS pulse sequence. Recommendations on acquisition and spectra analysis is made for the MRS protocol MEGA-PRESS aiming to detect glutathione in vivo. This is based on an investigation of glutathione acquisition in vivo and in vitro and was aimed to answer the question: can glutathione be measured reliably using conventional pulse sequence PRESS or does it require editing? The results showed strong evidence of using editing in order to have a reliable glutathione concentration measurement. An analysis along with a quality control method is also presented to enable the extraction of glutamate and glutamine from a GABA-optimised MEGA-PRESS pulse sequence. This enables simultaneous measurements of GABA, glutamate and glutamine in a single acquisition. A criterion of NAA linewidth < 8 Hz and Glx CRLB < 16% were defined as optimum features in the GABA-edited spectrum for a reliable glutamate and glutamine quantification. Finally, due to the increasing interest in functional MRS of GABA using MEGAPRESS an investigation on the feasibility of measuring GABA in a functional-MRS setting was performed with recommendations on study designs and subject size. Power calculations suggest that detecting a 40% change in GABA using a 4'30" acquisition requires 9-93 subjects per group in a between-group study design and 13- 68 participants in a within-session design, depending on the region of interest. This thesis is set out in the Journal format thesis. Three introductory chapters, with each experimental study presented as a chapter and a final chapter that summarizes and discusses the work. Results in this thesis provide a basis for a standard and reliable MRS pipeline to reliably measure glutathione, glutamate, glutamine and GABA using MEGA-PRESS pulse sequence at 3 Tesla.

In 2012, London successfully hosted the Games of the XXX Olympiad. The main legacy of hosting the event is the 560 acre, mixed use Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park located in Stratford in the heart of London s former industrial East End. The Park is located across the four Park Boroughs of Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest, each distinct in character but shaped by similar trends of urban regeneration and gentrification. This research examines the profiles, practices and perceptions of visitors to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park as an impact study of mega events conducted within five years after the London Olympics. It draws on research about mega events and urban regeneration with a focus on sports science and geography that has largely neglected visitor experiences as an outcome of mega events. Based on a mixed methods approach combining a longitudinal face-to-face visitor survey conducted over two years, a postal survey among local schools, and interviews with stakeholders, this thesis makes an original contribution to knowledge by proposing a new conceptual framework on mega event legacy and empirical findings on the use and perceptions of The Park by local, regional, national and international visitors. The conceptual approach (Chapter 3) bridges the two distinct literatures of mega-event legacy theory (and more broadly the sports literature) and actor-network theory. The framework allows for the study to approach the research questions from a tridic actor-network perspective, examining how material, immaterial and mainly human dynamic hybrids co-exist in complex webs of relations. It also allows for the unravelling of how these relations have given rise to impacts tied to the developments in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. This unravelling is explored through the remainder of this thesis. Following the description and analysis of methods used in the thesis (Chapter 4), Chapter 5 provides a historic overview of the four Park Boroughs that define the study area of the thesis. The shifting nature of this multicultural area is contextualised in light of several catalytic events (industrialisation, de-industrialisation and finally the Olympic Games). At the heart of this examination is the intention to show that despite the narratives pedalled by policy makers, planners and politicians, areas of East London were inhabited by groups who for several centuries symbiotically produced and reproduced their own diverse identities and ultimately that of East London. Chapter 6 analyses and critiques 35 policy documents released during the Olympic cycle (broadly defined here as the period between 2003 and 2012) and follows both the visible and invisible actants. The key findings are that: poorly executed event planning is inextricably linked to a poor implementation of local community interests; there were unheard and excluded voices, particularly the disadvantaged and displaced, in these policy and planning documents and; that there was little opportunity for the youth voice to be heard. Finally, the analysis of policy documents has underlined the value of reflecting on legacy promises from a longer-term perspective, suggesting that the legally binding bid books should be compared with the actual outcomes from a long-term perspective. The typical visitor to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park (Chapter 7) is a white middle-aged male or female (71% over age 25, ~50/50 male and female). They will be visiting the sports facilities and their frequency of use suggests that they have monthly membership to one of the leisure centres. This indicates that they have a relatively high level of both social capital and disposable income. They will reside within the Park Boroughs, often within walking distance of the Park or close to a transport link with a direct transport connection, probably by the Underground system. They will not often visit the Park with under 18s and if they do visit with anyone, it will be their partner or friend, and thus they resemble very closely the typical affluent gentrifier couples. The term experience athlete was coined for these visitors with 53% being from the Park Boroughs. In addition, there were those who came to sight-see, designated as Games tourists of whom 56% of these were international visitors. While ~20% of the visitors to the Park were under age 18 most of these were under 12s attending with their parents. Young people and particularly young people from the Park Boroughs were largely absent from the Park, which was contributed to by discriminatory practices (often under the guise of security issues) which focused on groups of ethnic minority youth. The possible reasons for the absence of young people from the Park are explored and unravelled in Chapter 8 by discussing the results of the semi-structured interviews with local stakeholders and the postal survey with school staff. The key issues raised in this chapter were that: the lack of a representative youth voice with a hidden and perceived to be cosmetic contribution to legacy planning and; the lack of social and financial capital in school staff and young people in combination with the gentrifying process and; spatial factors such as distance from the Park and poor acces routes, all contributed to the absence of young people from the Park. Overall, this thesis stresses the importance of unravelling networks to their fullest extent to truly understand the impact such spaces have on diverse communities.

Submitted by Nadir Basilio (nadirsb@uninove.br) on 2017-01-26T18:53:42Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Felipe de Pilla Varotti.pdf: 1349154 bytes, checksum: 1524c8132f7c8009e62174249c144673 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-01-26T18:53:42Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Felipe de Pilla Varotti.pdf: 1349154 bytes, checksum: 1524c8132f7c8009e62174249c144673 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-12-06 / Sports mega-events are increasingly being adopted by government entities as a strategy to project an image of the country and generate a significant international exposure, indicating the development of a particular city or country. Sports mega-events are correlated to the major international competitions, with high media coverage by different countries and large capital investment that attracts a large number of visitors and are organized by governmental and non-governmental entities such as the F1 GP Brazil. This event was used by governors of the city of São Paulo as a strategic focus, aiming an international exhibition and economic development. Thus, the main objective of this study was to evaluate the impacts and the legacies triggered by this event in São Paulo city. Adopting a descriptive and exploratory research, by a qualitative method, municipal managers, event organizers and local population were interviewed. It was possible to establish that the event generates some impacts, such as: economic, infrastructure, socio-cultural, psychological and administrative. In large part, externalities, as the results of certain activities. As legacies, improvements have been identified in the infrastructure and new public facilities, knowledge and skills developed by the organizers and managers involved in the event, international exposure, improving the city's reputation, establishment of a network, legacies related to motor racing history and the automotive industry, and sports legacy. The contributions of this research refer to the management of sport insofar as it demonstrated that the impacts and legacies are generated taking into consideration a series of cultural, historical, economic factors, in addition to the characteristics and resources of the host city. Indeed, it was possible to demonstrate that events held annually in one place have peculiar characteristics that favor the identification with their host cities, unlike those itinerant mega-events, performed every four years in different places. This study opens perspectives for public managers aiming at better strategic planning before proposing the accomplishment of events of this magnitude. Thus, it becomes possible to develop a sustainable sport mega event that can offer the positive impacts, both for its participants, but mainly for those who inherit the legacy of these events. / Os megaeventos esportivos estão cada vez mais sendo utilizados por entidades governamentais como estratégia para projetar uma imagem e gerar uma exposição internacional significativa, demonstrando o desenvolvimento de uma determinada cidade ou país. Megaeventos esportivos referem-se às principais competições internacionais, com cobertura de mídia por diversos países, investimento de grande capital, que atraem grande número de visitantes e são organizados por entidades governamentais em conjunto com entidades não governamentais, como o GP Brasil de F1. Este evento foi utilizado por governantes da cidade de São Paulo com um foco estratégico, visando uma exposição internacional e o desenvolvimento econômico. Desta forma, o objetivo principal deste estudo foi avaliar os impactos e os legados provocados por este evento para o município de São Paulo. Por meio de uma pesquisa descritiva e exploratória, de método qualitativo, foram entrevistados gestores municipais, organizadores do evento e população local. Identificou-se que o evento gera alguns impactos, tais como: econômicos, infraestrutura, socioculturais, psicológicos e administrativos, em sua grande parte, externalidades, sendo resultados de determinadas atividades. Como legados, identificaram-se melhorias na infraestrutura e novas instalações públicas, conhecimentos e habilidades desenvolvidas pelos organizadores e gestores envolvidos com o evento, exposição a nível internacional, melhorando a reputação da cidade, a rede de relacionamentos, legados relacionados à história do automobilismo e da indústria automobilística e legado esportivo. As contribuições desta pesquisa remetem para a gestão do esporte na medida em que demonstrou que os impactos e legados são gerados levando-se em consideração uma série de fatores culturais, históricos, econômicos, além das características e recursos do município sede. Demonstrou ainda que eventos realizados anualmente em um mesmo local possuem características peculiares que favorecem a identificação com suas cidades sedes, diferentemente daqueles megaeventos itinerantes, realizados a cada quatro anos em locais diferentes. Este estudo abre perspectivas para gestores públicos visando melhor planejamento estratégico antes de propor a realização de eventos desta magnitude. Assim, torna-se possível o desenvolvimento de um megaevento esportivo sustentável e que possa oferecer os impactos positivos, tanto para seus participantes, mas principalmente, para aqueles que herdam os legados desses eventos.

On 6th July 2005 the London Olympic bidding committee won the right to host the 2012 Olympic Games. Some seven years later London’s Olympic venues were built on time, Team GB accumulated an unprecedented medal haul and no significant security incidents occurred. These outcomes facilitated an understandable positive evaluation of the 2012 Games. It would be churlish not to be positive; Olympic venues experienced during Games are breathtaking. World records and Olympic contests are exciting. Olympic narratives that bond competitor and audience alike are inclusive and unifying. However, the prevalent belief that Olympic hosting provides unambiguous benefits to local communities is less sound. The evaluation of this assumption provides the focus for this inquiry, it follows French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu by considering that ‘one cannot grasp the most profound logic of the social world unless one becomes immersed in the specificity of an empirical reality’ (1993, p. 271). Accordingly, this research contrasted the rhetoric and reality of 2012 Olympic-delivery via an ethnographic inquiry in the Olympic borough of Newham. This location is defined as a ‘non-place’ wherein the majority of the Olympic restructuring and events occurred. This research addresses Olympic-delivery issues of inclusion, exclusion, power relations, ideology and identity, in doing so it argues that the relatively short Olympic-delivery time-frame necessitated a divisive segregation between ‘Olympic’ and ‘non-Olympic’ Newham. Furthermore, it is argued that 2012 Olympic-delivery was orientated towards the needs and goals of Olympic migrants, of various description, rather than enhancing the lives of those living within a community that was rife with crime, poverty and deprivation. Consequently, this research considers that the Olympic milieu disseminated the capitalistic norms and values to global, national and local audiences. The outcome of such processes facilitated a renegotiation of place-identity and place ownership within Newham that was orientated toward attracting a future affluent populace whilst concomitantly vilifying the pre-Games community. This research concludes that such attempts to re-mould Newham into a post-Olympic utopia where prosperous and educated families, to follow the Newham council strap line, ‘live, work and stay’ are based upon the short-sighted assumption that creating an aesthetically pleasing entertainment location is tantamount to creating a desirable location for sustainable family life.

Cities and countries increasingly seek mega-events to boost tourism, update local infrastructure, and improve the international standing of the host community. Benefits are actively promoted by the organizing committees, but these large-scale events also create significant economic, environmental and social costs for the host community. Measuring resident support is necessary because their support is required to secure the rights to the event, and to provide the necessary economic and human resources needed for hosting the event. This study utilized existing data on the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games to investigate the impact of a mega-event on the host community, and to measure resident support for the event. Social exchange theory provided the theoretical background for this dissertation. The theory states that the costs and benefits of an exchange are continually re-evaluated by the actors in the exchange relationship. The primary contribution of this study is support for the notion that social exchanges are temporal in nature; residents continually monitored the positive and negative impacts of the event on themselves and on their community. To reach this conclusion, this study utilized four data points in the year leading up to the Olympics to assess the changes in residents’ perceptions of the impacts of the event over time. These changes were evaluated in light of residents’ support for the event. A factor analysis reduced the fifteen impact statements into three factors: Benefits, Local Problems, and External Problems. Residents were segmented according to their assessment of the event impacts, resulting in three clusters: Supporters, Cynics, and Realists. Proximity to the main event location also was evaluated since this variable has had mixed results in previous resident studies. Results showed that resident perceptions varied over time, thus providing support for monitoring residents over multiple time periods. In addition, residents’ support and residents’ plans to attend the event were contributing factors in the assessment of the Benefits and Local Problems. Supporters, Cynics, and Realists demonstrated significant differences over time in their assessment of External Problems, and proximity to the event was found to be a significant factor in residents’ assessment of Local Problems. / Ph. D.

Read abstract in the document / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2017. / Church History and Church Policy / PhD / Unrestricted