Employee retention, especially of the best, most desirable employees is a key challenge at Sasol Nitro. Employers are trying to find ways to motivate employees to stay with their organisations for a longer period, but the efforts seem not to be working as challenges with employee retention are complex to comprehend. Different employees have different needs within the work environment and in their social relations. In this study, the writer studied variables of career progression as it impacts on employee retention. Attachment was measured in terms of personal embedding: an employee is attached to the organisation due to opportunities available within the organisation as well as the climate and work conditions prevailing within the organisation. Career opportunities seem a threat at Sasol Nitro. Voluntary resignation due to career progression factors is on the increase, as observed from the previous separations and turnover intent of the pilot study. The reasons employees leave organisations can vary widely, and as noted throughout the study, career opportunities play a major role. Remuneration/pay has consistently cited the most important factor to employee satisfaction. Although salary increases are often perceived as the most valuable incentive for employees to stay with the organisation, these are difficult to provide due to the present world recession in 2008. It is also difficult to personalise individual incentives to cater for those individuals that companies cannot afford to lose. Salaries, like other conditions of employment are no longer confidential as it used to be before the enactment of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act (Act 75 of 1997). / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2009.

Employee retention, especially of the best, most desirable employees is a key challenge at Sasol Nitro. Employers are trying to find ways to motivate employees to stay with their organisations for a longer period, but the efforts seem not to be working as challenges with employee retention are complex to comprehend. Different employees have different needs within the work environment and in their social relations. In this study, the writer studied variables of career progression as it impacts on employee retention. Attachment was measured in terms of personal embedding: an employee is attached to the organisation due to opportunities available within the organisation as well as the climate and work conditions prevailing within the organisation. Career opportunities seem a threat at Sasol Nitro. Voluntary resignation due to career progression factors is on the increase, as observed from the previous separations and turnover intent of the pilot study. The reasons employees leave organisations can vary widely, and as noted throughout the study, career opportunities play a major role. Remuneration/pay has consistently cited the most important factor to employee satisfaction. Although salary increases are often perceived as the most valuable incentive for employees to stay with the organisation, these are difficult to provide due to the present world recession in 2008. It is also difficult to personalise individual incentives to cater for those individuals that companies cannot afford to lose. Salaries, like other conditions of employment are no longer confidential as it used to be before the enactment of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act (Act 75 of 1997). / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2009.

The theme of the research stemmed from the generally held conviction that engineers are not found populating the managerial levels of UK based companies to the extent that is the case in most of continental Europe. Put simply, in the UK engineering is not considered to be the 'royal route' to management. In 1978 through a funding initiative by the then University Grants Committee, management enhanced 4 year engineering degree courses known as 'Dainton' courses after the then Chain-nano f the committee, Sir Frederick Dainton, were launched to attract some of the most able candidates to engineering. Designed to "fast track" engineers into management these courses have been running now for nearly 20 years and the research set out to answer whether their graduates have become managers, professional engineers, both or neither and how their background in technology and management may have influenced their subsequent career progression and migration into management. The study is based on 575 usable responses to a postal questionnaire sent to 1,838 'Dainton' graduate engineers and comparable control groups from Birmingham, Brunel, Cambridge, Impenal, Oxford and Strathclyde Universities. The responses to the questionnaire are supplemented by an ethnographical study of documentary course literature and discussions with staff responsible for the courses. Contrasts were found between the groups of engineers and the thesis explores these differencesa nd discussesth e possible reasonsf or them. By developing an insight into the role and influence of management training in engineering degrees the thesis concludes bv examining the consequences for the management of careers.

Bladder cancer (BlCa) is the second most common genitourinary cancer, affecting both men and women. Most (70%) cases present at the superficial stage; 20% of these recur with muscle-invasive disease. Major genetic alterations associated with BlCa include: loss/gain in expression or mutations in Retinoblastoma (RB) gene, human epidermal growth factor receptors (HERs), H-ras, p53 and FGFR3. Only p53 mutations are well correlated with invasive BlCa; other changes show variable correlations with disease status. To understand the progression of BlCa, a model of nine human BlCa cell sublines derived from a single parent but differing in in vivo characteristics, has been developed previously. These cells represent a heterogenous population from a single tumour and a model of different stages of BlCa progression, from non-tumourigenic to invasive. Two sublines were selected for further investigation: C3 (non-tumourigenic) and B8 (invasive). These were transfected with green (C3-GSP-2) and red fluorescent reporters (B8-RSP-gck) respectively to investigate the effects of their co-injection in vivo, specifically, promotion of C3 tumour growth by B8 cells. Surprisingly, B8 tumour growth was inhibited by C3 cells in vivo at different cell numbers and proportions of cells injected. Microarray analysis of C3 and B8 cells revealed differential expression of 1367 genes with dramatic differences in the transforming growth factor-?? and integrin-mediated pathways. Gene expression of BMP2, INHBB, FST, NOG, ID4 and TGF- ??1, in the TGF- ?? pathway was further analysed with qRT-PCR in all nine sublines. Expression of BMP2 was significantly related to tumourigenic potential (p=0.0238, Mann-Whitney) and INHBB to invasive ability (p=0.0476, Mann-Whitney). The BlCa model did not include a metastatic component. To broaden the model, cell lines were established from an invaded lymph-node (B8-RSP-LN) and a bone-metastasis (B8-RSP-BN) after subcutaneous and intra-cardiac injection of B8-RSP-gck cells. No significant differences were observed in the migratory capability and anchorage-independent colony formation of these metastatic cells compared with B8 cells. Evaluation of expression of the panel of TGF-beta genes (BMP2, INHBB, FST, NOG, ID4 and TGF- ??1) and metastasis-related genes (MMP9, MMP2 and KAI1) indicated that expression of BMP2, FST, ID4 and MMP9 was decreased or lost in the metastatic sublines.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:32:09Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2007-02-23Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:03:12Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 berti_ml_dr_assis.pdf: 530715 bytes, checksum: 3898e59d8cc563b376b6a8d3af2c6d1d (MD5) / O trabalho procura investigar os mecanismos de referenciação usados em produções de alunos de Ensino Médio para deixar pistas para que seu leitor faça inferências durante a leitura para produzir sentidos ao que lê. A reconstrução por inferenciação permite estabelecer o elo entre as informações explícitas e as implícitas no co-texto, em um determinado contexto. A inferência é uma estratégia muito importante para que se tome um texto como coeso e coerente, em termos de progressão referencial, colaborando de maneira decisiva para a produção de sentidos.A partir dos pressupostos da Lingüística textual e das teorias sobre leitura, apresenta a relação autor-texto-leitor no processo de produção e recepção do texto. Analisaram-se quantitativa e qualitativamente produções de textos de alunos de Ensino Médio nas quais se verificou o uso de seqüências pronominais, de repetições lexicais, das expressões nominais definidas, anáforas indiretas no texto ou referentes ao contexto, as quais permitem ao leitor fazer inferências e aturar como co-autor na produção dos sentidos. / The work investigates the mechanisms of reference used in High School student s productions in order to leave hints so that the reader com make inferences during the reading to produce meanings of what is being read. The reconstructions through inference permits to stablish the link among the explicit and implicit pieces of information in the co-text, in a determined context. The inference is a very important strategy to make a text cohesive and coherent, in terms of reference progression, contributing in a essencial way in the meaning production. From the textual linguistic and the theories about reading. The work presents the relationship author-text-reader in the process of text production and reception. It was analysed High School student s productions in quality and amount in which it was verified the use of pronominal sequences, of lexical repetitions, of defined nominal expressions, indirect anaphora in the text or referred to the context, wich allow the reader to make inferences and act as co-author in the production of meanings.

Master of Science / Department of Statistics / Wei-Wen Hsu / BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Alzheimer's disease is currently a neurodegenerative diseases without any effective treatments to slow or reverse the progression. To develop any potential treatments, the need of a good statistical model to assess the progression of Alzheimer's disease is becoming increasingly urgent. This study proposed a latent transition model to monitor the progression of Alzheimer's disease which can help the development of a given proposed treatment. METHOD: A latent transition model was used to assess the progression of Alzheimer's disease. The volume of Hippocampus and fluorodeoxyglucose-PET (FDG) were employed as biomarkers in this model. These two biomarkers are very sensitive to the pathological signs of the Alzheimer's disease. The proposed latent transition model was performed with real data from Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI), which contain 2,126 participants from 2005 to 2014. RESULTS/FINDINGS: The latent transition model suggested six states of disease progression and two different pathological profiles. One progression profile was mainly determined by the biomarker of FDG and the other by the volume of Hippocampus. CONCLUSION: The results revealed the existence of various progression profiles of Alzheimer's disease, suggesting a new way to evaluate the disease progression.

This thesis examines the changing nature of women's pregnancy experiences as progression through the various stages of pregnancy occurs. Ten women are followed through their pregnancies, in order to capture their diverse and dynamic psycho-social experiences. The aim of the research is to highlight the significance of certain psycho-social issues related to the pregnancy experience (both positive and negative) which have been raised by the women themselves during the course of their pregnancies. The analysis has been carried out using the women's own descriptions. The main psycho-social issues that have been analysed are considered under the rubric of the dynamic self, in the form of: identification with the pregnancy; the assessment of risk during pregnancy; and finally, images of the self and baby during pregnancy. The thesis focuses in-depth on the dynamism and complexity of women's feelings during pregnancy. In particular, it looks at the concept of being obstetrically 'at risk' by analysing women's contradictory and changing accounts of their feelings and concerns. The research also contributes to the understandings of the identities and preoccupations of pregnant women. The design of the study is longitudinal and biographic. The women kept personal documents in the form of diaries during their pregnancies, and also participated in four unstructured in-depth interviews (three taking place during pregnancy, the fourth taking place after birth). The methodological approach taken is based on a feminist research perspective, which emphasises the value of qualitative methods of investigation. The thesis explores the role of the researcher by examining the location of the researcher in relation to both the participants and the research area. The individual experiential accounts of pregnancy provided by the women are explored in detail using a feminist interpretative style of analysis (Stanley and Wise, 1993).

Matematikundervisning är tänkt att ske i en progression genom årskurserna i skolan. För att detta ska ske även vid övergångar mellan stadier i skolan krävs överlämningar av t.ex. den tidigare undervisningens innehåll och elevens kunskaper. Det finns dock indikationer på brister i överlämningen mellan den sedan 2018 obligatoriska förskoleklassen och årskurs 1. Syftet med vår studie är att undersöka hur lärare beskriver överlämningen av elevers matematikkunskaper mellan förskoleklass och årskurs 1. Genom analys av intervjuer med lärare i både förskoleklass och årskurs 1, indikerar studien att lärare upplever att det saknas struktur och stöd för överlämning och samverkan mellan de två skolformerna. Vidare kan vi se att detta är problematiskt utifrån ett likvärdighetsperspektiv. Vår slutsats är att aktuella styrdokument är otillräckliga och otydliga som stöd för lärarna i överlämningen mellan förskoleklass och åk 1.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(医学) / 甲第19608号 / 医博第4115号 / 新制||医||1015(附属図書館) / 32644 / 京都大学大学院医学研究科医学専攻 / (主査)教授 大森 孝一, 教授 鈴木 茂彦, 教授 影山 龍一郎 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Medical Science / Kyoto University / DFAM

Syftet med denna studie var att belysa hur progression och färdighetnivåerna från den Gemensamma europeiska referensramen för språk (GERS) kan vara till stöd för lärare. Ett exempel kan vara att hjälpa lärare vid val av läromedel för att synliggöra hur läromedlen stöttar elevernas utveckling av förmågorna lyssna, skriva och tala. För att uppfylla detta syfte formulerades tre forskningsfrågor: 1. Vilket utrymme får förmågorna skriva, lyssna samt tala i respektive läromedel? 2. Vilken färdighetsnivå enligt GERS kräver övningarna för förmågorna skriva, lyssna och tala? och 3. Hur ser progressionen ut för förmågorna skriva, lyssna och tala i de granskade läromedlen i relation till nivåerna i GERS? Studien granskade två läromedel varav ett läromedel var helt digitalt och det andra var ett tryckt läromedel i bokform. I studien analyserades uppgifterna med hjälp av GERS och kategoriserades med hjälp av Littlejohns ramverk. Studien använde dessutom en metodkombination, där både kvalitativa och kvantitativa metoder brukades. Resultatet visade att det finns en skillnad vad gäller det utrymme förmågorna får, samt att övningarna i läromedlen kategoriserades inom olika färdighetsnivåer. Dessutom visade det ena läromedlet på en tydligare progression inom GERS färdighetsnivåer.