In times of tightening national budgets as a result of structural adjustment requirements, the need to make choices in Zimbabwe's publicly funded research is heightened. Adoption of quantitative priority setting methods help improve the objectivity of decision-making while fostering consistency of research priorities with the attainment of research system objectives This study develops and applies a quantitative methodology for agricultural research priority setting for Zimbabwe's Department of Research and Specialist Services (DR&SS) under multiple objectives. Such a methodology must incorporate the structural characteristics of Zimbabwe's agricultural sector: the existence of different farmer types, five different agro-ecological regions and multiple objectives. A three part procedure was used in this study to prioritize agricultural research in Zimbabwe. The first part involved identifying the research objectives, defining the list of commodity and non-commodity programs to be prioritized, defining the agro-ecological zones and collecting technology related data and published information. Researchers, extension workers, and farmer representatives were interviewed using a questionnaire to obtain technology-related data. The second part involved economic analysis to measure the contributions of agricultural research to total economic benefits and their distribution by farmer type and agro-ecological region. Net present values (NPV) of economic surplus gains by research program were used to summarize the total economic efficiency gains projected over fifteen years. Once the benefits have been estimated, the third part of the procedure involved using mathematical programming (MP) to project the optimal allocation of research resources among the various commodities under alternative weights on objectives. A ranking of the expected NPVs indicated that agricultural research priorities are different between smallholder farmers and large scale commercial farmers, with maize cotton, groundnuts, sunflower, goats, pulses and millets being of high priority for smallholder farmers, while maize, beef, cotton, coffee, wheat, dairy, stonefruit, soybeans and roses were top priority for large scale commercial farmers. Research discipline priorities for smallholder farmers include agronomy, plant breeding and chemistry and soils while for large-scale commercial farmers the priorities are plant breeding, agronomy, and plant protection. Optimal allocation of research resources given two objectives (efficiency and equity) were assessed in a series of runs with the mathematical programming model. The tradeoff costs associated with putting an extra weight of different sizes on the equity objective, given the current total budget constraint were relatively modest implying that DR&SS can allocate resources to research on smallholder farming without great loss in efficiency. / Ph. D.

This collection of essays includes a preference that investigates the role and importance of setting and character in a nonfiction narrative. The preface assesses the writings of four great authors, examining how each author use setting and characterization to further the purpose of their story. This collection focuses on four different issues that the author has wrestled with for two decades. While “Desperado” is an investigation into the problems within her own family, “Being Black Me” highlights the authors struggle against the racial inequality her hometown. “Voices In The Dark”, the author analyze how the abuse she suffered as a child has influenced her life and contributed to a drinking problem that is explored in a later essay “Alors On Danse”.

The pricing practices that firms that follow are important from a microeconomic as well as a macroeconomic perspective, indicating the nature and level of competition. These practices also prove to affect the effectiveness of monetary policy. This study engineered a survey approach to better understand the pricing behaviour of firms in the South African retail sector.The survey approach to understanding pricing setting has grown in popularity in recent times, allowing for deeper insights into the mindsets of actual pricing professionals than information offered by micro data studies. Most previous studies have focused on developed countries, while this study deals with a sector of high industry concentration in a developing country with a relatively unstable foreign exchange rate.The results of the study demonstrate that South African retail firms compete primarily with their pricing and quality, and that there is evidence of barometric price leadership. The dominant framework used by firms to set their prices is mark-up pricing.Both price reviews and price changes in South African retail firms were found to be time dependent, and the causes of price changes were asymmetrical depending on the direction of the change. The main driver of price increases was an increase in input costs, while the main driver of price decreases was a reduction in domestic competitor prices.Prices within the South African retail sector were found to be sticky, with the strongest specific cause of firms delaying price adjustments being the maintenance of threshold prices. When considering the reasons for stickiness more broadly as themes, customer relationships are the strongest driver of stickiness, followed by the avoidance of coordination failure. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

This study explored 6 high school student’s experiences of setting sexual boundaries. The significance of this study expands the findings and contributes to the existing literature on sexual learning by adolescents setting sexual boundaries. Qualitative methodology, narrative style semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis were used in this study. Research findings point out that youths face significant challenges when setting sexual boundaries, such as, dealing with negative responses, having to maintain boundaries for an extended time, and managing emotional distress after consent is provided, but not followed by, a positive sexual experience. Implications for future research would include an exploration of this research question with a larger and more diverse population. The goal would be to develop findings that could be generalized with a larger population. Further, the goal would be to engage in an increased dialog of sex-education for youths. The important areas to explore would include experiences of setting sexual boundaries, support a healthy integration of the meanings that are associated with these experiences, and to enhance strength-based practices of setting healthy sexual boundaries. / Graduate

Magister Scientiae (Physiotherapy) - MSc(Physio) / Clinical education is considered a cornerstone of the healthcare professionals’ education including physiotherapists. Clinical education involves translation of theoretical knowledge into practical skills, facilitated by clinical educators whose roles vary from place to place. The clinical educators’ roles have a number of facilitators as well as barriers and these have been minimally evaluated globally and locally, including Uganda. Therefore, the aim of the study was to explore and describe the perception of the physiotherapists regarding their role as clinical educators and to identify the barriers to and facilitators for physiotherapy clinical education at the national and regional referral hospitals in Uganda. / 2022

Abstract available in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

The purpose of this study was to identify an effective strategy to increase English Language Arts (ELA) proficiency in middle schools. This study assessed the outcome of classroom looping in an urban middle school. Vygotsky's theory of social development was the theoretical framework of this study. Two research questions explored statistical differences between scale and number correct scores on the standardized ELA Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP). Classroom settings (looping and traditional) served as independent variables, and ELA TCAP assessments were used as the dependent variable. This study included a random sample of 188 students (94 looping and 94 traditional) in a West Tennessee middle school. Mann-Whitney U tests were conducted to obtain mean scale and number correct scores on 2011-2013 ELA TCAP assessments. Findings indicated no statistically significant differences in performance between groups, with small effect sizes. Mean scale and number correct scores also indicated below proficient levels for all years tested in both groups. Findings suggested a need for the middle school studied to analyze current practices possibly attributing to current ELA TCAP proficiency as a solution. Continuous school improvement was presented as a strategy of utilizing multiple data sources to monitor and adjust school practices to improve student proficiency. A white paper was chosen as a project due to its intent to provide a short, concise explanation of an unfamiliar concept to administrators. The presented project has the potential of leading to positive social change by providing administrators with an ongoing system of monitoring and adjusting school wide instructional practices to meet the needs of all students being served.

Sedimentary rocks are an important source of information about previous orogenic conditions and the composition of which may describe the evolution of provenance and tectonic setting. Many factors influence sediment composition, namely, source rock composition, chemical weathering, climate, transport burial, and diagenesis. As the sediment composition changes through time, the geochemical characteristics of the sediment can be used to understand its geologic history. The geochemical characteristics of clastic sedimentary rocks are useful in determining the depositional setting and its associated provenance. Although many different studies have used geochemical discriminants to evaluate provenance and tectonic settings, none have used a defined geochemical method. This study evaluates the present-day geochemical approaches to see which, if any, are the most useful.

When analyzing data in a survival setting, whether of people or objects, one of the assumptions made is that the population is homogeneous. This is not true in reality and certain adjustments can be made in the model to account for heterogeneity. Frailty is one method of dealing with some of this heterogeneity. It is not possible to measure frailty directly and hence it can be very difficult to determine which frailty model is appropriate for the data in interest. This thesis investigates three model selection methods in their effectiveness at determining which frailty distribution best describes a given set of data. The model selection methods used are the Bayes factor, neural networks, and classification trees. Results favored classification trees. Very poor results were observed with neural networks.

While some researchers have suggested that participative goal setting increases performance, acceptance, commitment, and satisfaction, others have suggested that it does not. Additionally, much research on goal setting has been done in the US while none has been done in Macedonia. The purpose of this study was to clarify the relationship between participation in goal setting and company size on these variables and to determine if there are differences in the effects of participation in goal setting in the US and Macedonia. The independent variables were country, company size, and type of participation and dependent variables were performance, commitment, acceptance, and satisfaction. Participants also completed Hofstede’s (1994) VSM and demographic questions. Workers from the US scored significantly higher on all dependent variables. There were no significant differences in participation verses assigned goal setting on the four dependent variables. Multiple regressions revealed that some VSM questions predicted the four dependent variables.