Life Orientation, a core subject of the South African secondary school curriculum since 1996, is still not taught successfully in the majority of secondary schools. This study was conducted in former Model C secondary schools in the Nelson Mandela Metropole in order to identify challenges and problems with regard to the management of the teaching of the subject. If the subject were managed properly by principals the Departmental outcomes would have been achieved and problems would not have existed. In this study the managerial challenges of the teaching of Life Orientation have been identified by means of mixed method research, in terms of the four main management tasks, namely leading, planning, organising and controlling. The views of principals were obtained through a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The data was synthesised, multi-dimensional management problems were identified and recommendations were made with regard to managing the important subject of Life Orientation. / Educational Leadership and Management / M. Ed. (Education Management)

The introduction of Outcomes-Based Curriculum 2005, has meant that the learning area of Life Orientation has undergone significant changes. These changes encompass both the scope of the learning area of Life Orientation, and the implementation of Life Orientation. The aim of this investigation has been to examine the implications of Outcomes-Based Curriculum 2005, for Life Orientation as well as to propose a method of assisting this implementation. The training of facilitators has met with mixed results and there is still confusion surrounding Curriculum 2005, and the learning area of Life Orientation. The development of an implementation model was therefore proposed and developed to assist Life Orientation facilitators to make the transition from a theoretical understanding to the practical implementation. The results of the study determined that the facilitators were overwhelmingly in support of the implementation model. They found it provided a logical and comprehensive framework, which would be helpful in assisting them with planning their learning programmes. In order to understand more fully the effectiveness of the implementation model in the classroom reality, it will however be necessary to undertake a study over a longer term with participating facilitators. A number of other issues also were investigated as part of this study. From this it was determined that facilitators feel they require more training to implement an Outcomes-Based appro'ach particularly with regard to assessment. Facilitators have also not yet fully understood what constitutes the learning area of Life Orientation, nor their tasks as a facilitator. / Psychology of Education / D. Ed. (Psychology of Education)

The introduction of PPPs in infrastructure provision has changed the way in which governments around the world now view infrastructure provision. However, the introduction of PPPs to deliver the needed infrastructure has benefited only a few companies. Most of these companies are the big construction firms that possess technological know-how and those that have the financial ability to execute large infrastructure projects. Although SMEs are important for employment creation, inequality and poverty reduction, the participation of SMEs in these PPP projects is very low. This is because PPP models in developing countries are based on those used in developed economies, and such models ignore the socio-economic problems facing developing countries. Therefore, this study argues that PPP projects in developing countries present an opportunity for growing the SME sectors in developing countries. It challenges the viewpoint of seeing infrastructure backlogs only as providing opportunities to big private sector companies and argues that infrastructure backlogs can be used by governments to reduce the triple challenges of unemployment, poverty and inequality by linking SMEs to PPP projects. The traditional PPP model that is being applied by many developing countries does not fully encourage the participation of SMEs in PPP projects, as most of the projects executed through this model are bundled into big projects that SMEs cannot execute due to a lack of technological know-how and weak balance sheets. The study therefore suggests different ways in which the participation of SMEs in PPP projects could be improved based on the results of the survey conducted for this study. The study then proposes an “innovative conceptual PPP model for sustainable SME development” that takes into account the needs for developing countries to create jobs, reduce poverty and inequality. It also takes into account all challenges for SMEs identified through the review of literature and the study survey. / Economics / D. Litt. et Phil. (Economics)

The project ClinicSpace aims to fill gaps in current clinical systems, regarding to the characteristics of pervasive computing tasks and clinical activities support to the user (physician). The architecture of the model ClinicSpace, built from the perspective given by the activity theory, it is composed of several modules that interconnected offer the features needed in a system geared to clinical pervasive end-user. One of these modules is the treatment of the clinical tasks. This work holds a discussion on the present requirements for the treatment of the clinical tasks, defining an architecture to link them to the tasks of the user, allowing context customization and automatic entry of data. The customization is achieved through the use of Programmable Elements of Context, which are represented by actuators, physical or logical, responsible for providing the system capacity of automatic executions, based on the parameters specified by the user. Yet the automatic data comes from the implicit way of obtaining these, the information used by applications that the user performs in the course of their duties. For this, an architecture was set up to support the customization and the semantic specification of data used. Building such features extended the pervasive middleware EXEHDA, modifying the already existing services and adding new ones. The main contribution of this work is the interconnection between the components that make up the architecture, building a unique view of the context of a task from the perspective of the necessary data for it and the ability to be customized by the user. Thus, it reduces the need for explicit data entry, and it contributes to the reducing rejections of its adoption of clinical systems in highly dynamic environments such as hospitals. / O projeto ClinicSpace tem por objetivo preencher as lacunas existentes nos sistemas clínicos atuais, no que tange às características de pervasividade e apoio de tarefas computacionais às atividades clínicas que o usuário (médico) realiza. A arquitetura do modelo ClinicSpace, construída a partir da perspectiva dada pela teoria da atividade, é composta por vários módulos que interligados oferecem as características necessárias a um sistema clínico pervasivo orientado ao usuário-final. Um desses módulos é o tratamento de contexto das tarefas clínicas. Esse trabalho realiza uma discussão sobre os requisitos presentes para o tratamento de contexto das tarefas clínicas, definindo uma arquitetura para associá-los às tarefas do usuário, permitindo personalização de contexto e entrada automática de dados. A personalização é obtida através da utilização de Elementos Programáveis de Contexto, que são representados por atuadores, físicos ou lógicos, responsáveis por dotar o sistema de capacidade de execuções automáticas, baseadas em parâmetros de contexto especificados pelo usuário. Já a entrada automática de dados trata da obtenção destes de maneira implícita, obtendo as informações utilizadas pelas aplicações que o usuário executa, no decorrer de suas tarefas. Para isso, definiu-se uma arquitetura com suporte à personalização e especificação semântica dos dados nela utilizados. Para construir tais funcionalidades, estendeu-se o middleware pervasivo EXEHDA, modificando serviços existentes e agregando novos serviços. A principal contribuição do trabalho está na interligação existente entre os componentes que integram a arquitetura, construindo uma visão única do contexto de uma tarefa sob a perspectiva dos dados necessários a ela e da capacidade de personalização pelo usuário. Dessa forma, reduz-se a necessidade da entrada explícita de dados, e contribui-se para a redução da rejeição da adoção dos sistemas clínicos em ambientes altamente dinâmicos, como os hospitalares.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T19:34:31Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Georges Amauri Lopes.pdf: 1318748 bytes, checksum: 7414a99112e9a61d311cc5e645cce46d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-09-04 / If it is true that the contemporary societies are extremely complex, formed by many subgroups owner of different values, there is no reason to deny that all of them agree on a minimum of morality and types of behaviors necessary to make any pacific union in the society possible. The elements which are in that agreement are learned by the socialization procedure, and are sustained and protected by the informal social control in a first moment. When this control is no longer effective those fundamental elements and social conditions are at risk, the State must bring to itself the formal social control, which is made by the penal law, one of the many instruments that exist for it. Many of the fundamental social conditions may be put on danger by acts in the economic activity specifically. This paper intends to legitimate the economic penal law as a way of protecting the fundamental social conditions necessary for a pacific, fair and equal social life, which may be offended by abusive acts of the economic power. / Em que pese ser a contemporaneidade caracterizada por uma sociedade altamente complexa, na qual podem ser encontrados diversos sub-grupos orientados por valores ou padrões comportamentais diversificados, não se nega haver um mínimo consenso ético sem o qual não se faria possível a existência de qualquer coesão pacífica. Os elementos espirituais que a compõem são ensinados no processo de socialização e assegurados, num primeiro momento, pelo controle social informal. Quando este não se mostra mais capaz a tanto e bens jurídicos essenciais estão sob risco, o Estado tem o dever de chamar para si o controle social formal, constituindo-se o direito penal em um dos instrumentos existentes. Vários daqueles bens jurídicos podem ser lesionados por atos manifestados especificamente na atividade econômica. Esta dissertação tem por escopo fundamentar o direito penal econômico como meio de proteção aos bens jurídicos essenciais à coexistência social pacífica, justa e igualitária que podem ser colocados em risco pelos atos abusivos do poder econômico.

This study investigates the effects of authentic materials and contextually-developed role-playing activities on the oral proficiency of Thai undergraduate students. The study was conducted at Prince of Songkla University, Thailand during the first semester (June to September) of 2010. The study consisted of four research instruments and the data were analyzed using Independent Samples t-test to determine whether the authentic materials and contextually-developed role-playing activities had improved the students’ oral fluency and accuracy in the target language. The findings indicated statistically significant differences between the two groups wherein the experimental group performed better on both fluency and accuracy than the control group. Therefore, based on the findings of the current study, it can be concluded that authentic materials and contextually-developed role-playing activities involving a series of sequential events are effective in enhancing learners’ oral proficiency in programs of English as a foreign language in the context of Thailand English education. / English Studies / M.A. (TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages))

Diploma thesis "European collaborative defense projects and the military capacity of the EU" is dealing with the realization of cooperative projects and with their influence on the development of military capacities of the European Union member states. The author examines the economic and military advantages of international defense collaboration. The optimal way of collaboration leads to lower development and production costs, higher quality of the product and better competitiveness on the market. The author uses selected European programs to test how the results are achieved in reality. Further author identifies the goals of the European Defense and Security Policy as they were set up by the European Union. Mainly the so called Petersberg Tasks. The author examines which military capabilities the European Union needs to build in order to realize the full scope of the Petersberg Tasks and whether the realized collaborative projects enhance the capabilities of the Union for these tasks.

Syfte: Den rådande digitaliseringen av samhällsbyggandet leder till möjlighet att automatisera och effektivisera processer inom samhällsbyggandet. Att automatisera delar av bygglovsprocessen med hjälp av Robotic Process Automation (RPA) är möjligt. En sådan implementering skulle kunna leda till effektivare processer, men kanske även andra effekter, negativa som positiva. Några av Sveriges kommuner har redan implementerat RPA i bygglovsprocessen och andra står i begrepp att göra det inom kort. Därför är det av hög relevans att utreda hur mycket RPA kan effektivisera bygglovsprocessen samt undersöka hur automatisering påverkar arbetet för personal på bygglovsenheter. Syftet med denna studie är, därför, att undersöka i vilken utsträckning bygglovsprocessen kan effektiviseras med hjälp av RPA. Vidare önskar studien utreda hur en sådan implementering kan påverka arbetsuppgifter och arbetstillfällen för bygglovshandläggare och administratörer på bygglovsenheter i Sverige. Metod: Denna studie utförs som en survey. För att uppnå studiens syfte och mål har två olika datainsamlingstekniker valts, där primärdata insamlas genom intervjuer och sekundärdata via en dokumentstudie. Studien är således i huvudsak av kvalitativ karaktär, men kompletteras med kvantitativ empiri för att kunna styrka slutsatser. Resultat: I rapporten framkommer det att bygglovsprocessen effektiviseras med hjälp av RPA. Genom att automatisera moment i processen, beräknas 141,5 timmar/månad sparas in på tidigare manuellt utförda arbeten. Tiden som sparas in läggs istället på uppgifter som anses relevanta och mer kunskapskrävande. Detta i sin tur leder till en förändring av arbetsuppgifter för de anställda på bygglovsenheten och lyfts som en positiv aspekt. Vidare visar studien att bygglovshandläggares arbetstillfällen inte har påverkats på grund av RPA samt ger inga anvisningar på att deras arbeten i framtiden kommer hotas. De som påverkas mest av implementeringen är administratörer, då det främst är administrativa uppgifter som kan ersättas av RPA. Studien ger en viss indikation på att administrativa tjänster och behovet av administratörer på bygglovsenheter kan komma att minska, som en följd av automatisering. Konsekvenser: Genom att implementera RPA i bygglovsprocessen uppnås inte bara en effektivisering av processen. Andra fördelar som nöjdare medarbetare och högre kvalitét på besluten är också effekter av automatisering. Nöjdare medarbetare kan, i förlängningen, leda till färre antal uppsägningar och följaktligen en förhöjd kompetensnivå på bygglovsenheten. Högre kvalitét på beslut leder till ett ökat förtroende för bygglovsenheter i Sverige. Vidare kan även RPA bidra till en mer enhetlig bygglovsprocess kommuner emellan, då uppsatta funktioner och regler, samt information kan delges mellan kommunerna. Begränsningar: Då studien utförts som ett examensarbete har begräsningar funnits i form av antal ord som studien får omfatta. Utöver det har studien undersökt tre av Sveriges kommuner som arbetat med RPA i minst ett år. Om fler kommuner undersökts, skulle studiens validitet kunnat öka. / Purpose: The current digitalization of community building leads to the opportunity to automate and streamline processes in community building. Automating parts of the building permit process using Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is possible. Such implementation could lead to more efficient processes, but perhaps also other effects, negative and positive. Some of Sweden's municipalities have already implemented RPA in the building permit process and others are about to do so shortly. Therefore, it is of high relevance to investigate how much RPA can make the building permit process more efficient and investigate how automation affects the amount of work for employees at building permit units. The purpose of this study is to investigate the extent to which the building permit process can be streamlined with the help of RPA. Furthermore, the study wishes to investigate how such an implementation can affect the tasks and jobs of caseworkers and administrators at building permit units in Sweden. Method: This study is carried out as a survey. In order to achieve the purpose and objectives of the study, two different data collection techniques have been selected, where primary data is collected through interviews and secondary data via a document study. The study is thus mainly of a qualitative nature but is supplemented with quantitative empirical evidence in order to substantiate conclusions. Findings: The report shows that the building permit process is made more efficient with the help of RPA. By automating steps in the process, it is estimated that 141.5 hours/month is saved on previously manually performed work. The time saved is instead mainly spent on tasks that are considered relevant and more knowledge-intensive. This in turn leads to a change in tasks for the employees at the building permit unit, and is highlighted as a positive aspect. Furthermore, the study shows that jobs of building permit caseworkers have not been affected due to RPA and does not provide any indications that their work will be threatened in the future. Those most affected by the implementation are administrators, as it is mainly administrative tasks that can be replaced by RPA. The study provides some indication that administrative services and the need for administrators in building permit units may decrease, as a result of automation. Implications: By implementing RPA in the building permit process, not only is the process streamlined. Other benefits such as more satisfied employees and higher quality of decisions are also effects of automation. Satisfied employees can lead to fewer redundancies and consequently an increased level of competence at the building permit unit in the long run. Higher quality of decisions leads to increased trust in building permit units in Sweden. Furthermore, RPA can also contribute to a more unitary building permit process between municipalities, as established functions and rules, as well as information can be shared between the municipalities. Limitations: Since the study was carried out as a bachelor thesis, there were restrictions of the number of words that the study may include. In addition, the study examined three of Sweden's municipalities that worked with RPA for at least one year. If more municipalities were examined, the validity of the study could increase.

This paper deals with various approaches to solving optimization tasks. In prolog some examples from real life that show the application of optimization methods are given. Then term optimization task is defined and introducing of term fitness function which is common to all optimization methods follows. After that approaches by particle swarm optimization, ant colony optimization, simulated annealing, genetic algorithms and reinforcement learning are theoretically discussed. For testing we are using two discrete (multiple knapsack problem and set cover problem) and two continuous tasks (searching for global minimum of Ackley's and Rastrigin's function) which are presented in next chapter. Description of implementation details follows. For example description of solution representation or how current solutions are changed. Finally, results of measurements are presented. They show optimal settings for parameters of given optimization methods considering test tasks. In the end are given test tasks, which will be used for finding optimal settings of given approaches.

Involving customers in the creation and design process of new products and services has been dis-cussed in practice and research since the early 1980’s. As one of the first researchers, von Hippel (1986) shed light on the concept of Lead Users, a group of users who are able to provide most accu-rate data on future needs for organizations. Subsequently, many scholars emphasized different areas of contribution for customers and how they provide assistance to the process of innovation. First of all, customers may contribute to product innovation (Cooper & Kleinschmidt, 1987; Driessen & Hillebrand, 2013; Füller & Matzler, 2007; Gruner & Homburg, 2000; Sawhney, Verona, & Prandelli, 2005; Snow, Fjeldstad, Lettl, & Miles, 2011; Yang & Rui, 2009) and service innovation (Abecassis-Moedas, Ben Mahmoud-Jouini, Dell’Era, Manceau, & Verganti, 2012; Alam, 2002; Chesbrough, 2011; Larbig-Wüst, 2010; Magnusson, 2003; Paton & Mclaughlin, 2008; Shang, Lin, & Wu, 2009; Silpakit & Fisk, 1985), e.g., by co-creating values (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004), such as concepts or designs as well as reviewing and testing them throughout the stages of the process of innovation. From the customers’ point of view, being involved in innovation processes and becoming a part of the organ-ization is a desire of an increasing number of them. Customers are demanding more individual and more tailored products. They are increasingly knowledgeable and capable of designing and produc-ing their own products and services. Due to the fact that their influence on product development is positively related to the quality of the new product (Sethi, 2000), more and more organizations appreciate them as innovation actors and are willing to pay them for their input. Today, customers are not only involved in the qualification of products (Callon, Méadel, & Rabeharisoa, 2002; Callon & Muniesa, 2005; Grabher, Ibert, & Flohr, 2009) but also allowed to customize and evaluate them on the path to innovation (Franke & Piller, 2004; Piller & Walcher, 2006; von Hippel & Katz, 2002; von Hippel, 2001). Moreover, there is an abundance of studies that stress the customers’ influence on effectiveness (de Luca & Atuahene-Gima, 2007; Kleinschmidt & Cooper, 1991; Kristensson, Matthing, & Johansson, 2008; Still, Huhtamäki, Isomursu, Lahti, & Koskela-Huotari, 2012) and risk (Bayer & Maier, 2006; Enkel, Kausch, & Gassmann, 2005; Enkel, Perez-Freije, & Gassmann, 2005). While the latter comprises the risk of customer integration as well as the customers’ influence on market risks, e.g., during new product development, studies on effectiveness are mostly concerned with customer-orientation and products/services in line with customers’ expectations (Atuahene-Gima, 1996, 2003; Fuchs & Schreier, 2011). The accompanying change in understanding became known as open innovation (OI; first coined by Chesbrough in 2003) and represents a paradigm shift, where organizations switch their focus from internally generated innovation (i.e., ideation, in-house R&D, etc.) toward external knowledge and open innovation processes, thus, allowing them to integrate external ideas and actors, i.e. custom-ers (Chesbrough, 2006) and other external stakeholders (Laursen & Salter, 2006). Since then, OI has been identified as a success factor for increasing customer satisfaction (Füller, Hutter, & Faullant, 2011; Greer & Lei, 2012) and growing revenues (Faems, De Visser, Andries, & van Looy, 2010; Mette, Moser, & Fridgen, 2013; Spithoven, Frantzen, & Clarysse, 2010). In addition to that, by open-ing their doors to external experts and knowledge workers (Kang & Kang, 2009), organizations cope with shorter innovation cycles, rising R&D costs, and the shortage of resources (Gassmann & Enkel, 2004). Parallel to the paradigm shift in innovation, another shift has taken place in information and com-munication technologies (Kietzmann, Hermkens, McCarthy, & Silvestre, 2011). Only a few years ago, when customer integration was still very costly, companies had to fly in customers, provide facilities onsite, permanently assign employees to such activities, and incentivise each task execut-ed by customers. Today, emerging technologies (subsumed under the term ‘social software’) help integrating customers or other external stakeholders, who are increasingly familiar with the such technologies from personal usage experience (Cook, 2008), and grant them access from all over the world in a 24/7 fashion. Examples include blogging tools, social networking systems, or wikis. These technologies help organizations to access customer knowledge, facilitate the collaboration with customers (Culnan, McHugh, & Zubillaga, 2010; Piller & Vossen, 2012) at reduced costs and allow them to address a much larger audience (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). On the other hand, customers can now express their needs in a more direct way to organizations. However, each technology or application category may present a completely different benefit to the process of innovation or parts of it and, thus, the innovation itself. Reflecting these developments, organizations need to know two things: how can they exploit the customers’ knowledge for innovation purposes and how may the implementation of social soft-ware support this. Hence, this research addresses the integration of customers in organizational innovation, i.e. new product development. It addresses how and why firms activate customers for innovation and which contribution customers provide to the process of innovation. Additionally, it investigates which tasks customers may take over in open innovations projects and which strategies organiza-tions may choose to do so. It also addresses which social software application supports each task best and how organizations may select the most suitable application out of a rapidly growing num-ber of alternatives. The nature of this research is recommendatory and aims at designing a solution for organizations that are interested in the potential contribution of customers during innovation, already involve customers in innovation tasks or plan to do so. Following the recommendations of this research should result in a more effective organizational exploitation of customer knowledge and their workforce and, thus, a value added to innovation and the outcomes of the process of innovation, e.g., a product that better fits the customers’ expectations and demands or consequently a better adoption of the product by the customer.:1 Introduction 2 Theoretical foundation 3 Research areas and focal points 4 Research aims and questions 5 Methods 6 Findings 7 Conclusion References Essay 1: The Role of External Knowledge in Open Innovation – A Systematic Review of Literature Essay 2: External Knowledge in Organisational Innovation – Toward an Integration Concept Essay 3: Idea Mining – Text Mining Supported Knowledge Management for Innovation Purposes Essay 4: How do Tasks and Technology fit? – Bringing Order to the Open Innovation Chaos