Magister Legum - LLM / This thesis will examine the effects of divorce on the benefit payable to a member of a retirement fund, where divorce has occurred before the member has reached retirement age. In particular, parametric (that is, piecemeal) amendments to the relevant legislation will be analysed in order to outline the development of the legislation relating to divorce and the consequent distribution of assets (including retirement savings). The previous and current legal position in South Africa relating to divorce and retirement savings will be set out and critically analysed to determine whether the current position can be regarded as an improvement upon the previous legal position, or whether other and/or new problems in this area have been created. Parametric amendments to relevant legislation have thus far been the subject of many cases in our courts and adjudicative tribunals. A systemic overhaul of a particular area of law is a useful tool in providing legal certainty and clarifying the laws applicable to that area. This thesis will therefore argue in favour of a systemic overhaul of the legislation applicable to the allocation of retirement benefits at divorce, as opposed to the ineffectual parametric (i.e. piecemeal) amendments that have been implemented thus far. An essential aspect of this study is a comparative study of South African legal principles relating to retirement benefits and divorce with the legal principles of this subject in the United Kingdom (UK). / South Africa

Please read the summary in the front pages of the file named 00dissertation / Dissertation (LLM (Procedural Law))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Procedural Law / unrestricted

Background: Domestic violence and abuse is a public health problem affecting more than one third of all women globally. It usually takes place between individuals in intimate relationships and/or within the family. In the United Kingdom (UK), while theoretical and policy interventions have led to an increase in domestic violence and abuse service provision for women, there is paucity of research on the disclosure and help-seeking practices of women from ethnic minority populations. Aim: To identify factors influencing disclosure and help-seeking practices of Nigerian (ethnic minority population) women resident in England with lived experience of domestic violence and abuse, in order to make recommendations to relevant stakeholders on domestic violence service provision and utilisation. Methods: A cross-sectional qualitative research design was utilised. This included a qualitative systematic review of literature on domestic violence research among women from ethnic minority populations in the UK; individual, in-depth semi-structured interviews with 16 Nigerian women resident in England with lived experience of domestic violence and abuse, and with nine Nigerian religious and community leaders based in England. The interviews were conducted between May 2012 and April 2014, and data were analysed using thematic analysis technique. Findings: Three main themes were identified as factors influencing the disclosure and help-seeking practices of Nigerian (ethnic minority population) women in England, UK. These are socialisation from country of birth, immigration status, and acculturation in the country of immigration. These findings were discussed using the modified sociological theory of domestic violence and abuse. Conclusion: There is a need for appropriate gender socialisation, and collaborative working with ethnic minority community groups and faith-based organisations to enhance access and facilitate utilisation of existing domestic violence services by Nigerian (ethnic minority populations) women resident in England with lived experience of domestic violence and abuse.

WHAT WAS DONE? This study researches the success of several value investment strategies in the stock markets of the United Kingdom and Germany based on nine firm fundamentals that are extracted from listed firms annual financial statements. In this regard, we first examine alternative forecast combination methods in a novel way to utilise fully the financial information at hand. Second, we examine the drivers of investment returns, particularly the role of information uncertainty, for which a new direct measure is developed. Finally, we evaluate the performance of these financial health investment strategies in alternative institutional environments by focusing on the differences between the two markets regarding both their corporate culture and their legal environment. WHY WAS IT DONE? Similar to economics, the discipline of finance is a social science because its observations emanate from economic transactions between humans. Nevertheless, a significant part of the research in this area is undertaken by means that are almost exclusively applied to the natural sciences, such as mathematics or physics. Although the reasons seem manifold, an increased form of scientificity, in conjunction with greater credibility of the research process and results, is deemed to be of primary importance. However, the benchmark for evaluating these research outcomes differs from those used in the natural sciences. From the example of the efficient market hypothesis one can see that alternative research results that cast serious doubt upon efficiency per se are disregarded as aberrations, leading to the assumption that the hypothesis in its entirety is more or less valid. This study assumes that inefficiencies in the stock market do exist for prolonged periods of time and investors are actually able to benefit from them. HOW WAS IT DONE? Secondary financial statement data of listed companies in the United Kingdom and Germany were downloaded from Datastream for the period between 1992 and 2010. A quantitative analysis of the significance of the correlation between groups of firms with similar financial characteristics and their one-year-ahead stock returns was subsequently performed. Various combination methods for differential weighting of individual financial statement items were conducted. The aim was to increase the profitability of the investment strategy. WHAT WAS FOUND? In general, a classification of stocks according to certain internal criteria of financial health is capable of separating future winners from losers and at the same time confirms the results of a previous US study. More specifically, we first show that a wide range of combination methods generate profitable investment strategies whereby especially measures of profitability are the central indicator of a firm s future performance. Secondly, the more complex methods neither consistently nor substantively outperform the simpler methods. Thirdly, information uncertainty does not seem to be the prime driver of the profitability of an investment strategy. Lastly, we show that financial health investment strategies are profitable both in market-oriented, common law settings and in bank-oriented, code law settings.

Background: A key innovation in the provision of inpatient services to facilitate the care and treatment of women with severe postnatal mental illness was the introduction of joint mother and baby psychiatric hospitalisations, where both the mother and baby are admitted to hospital together. This study examined the history of the practice of joint mother and baby admissions across the UK and critically explored the processes relevant to the diffusion of joint admissions and patterns of service development to identify the possible and probable causes for significant differences in service provision across the United Kingdom (UK). Aims: The study examined the documented history of the development of practice of joint mother and baby psychiatric hospital admissions across the UK and in doing so, a) Identified the pattern of service and practice development and the likely reasons for the pattern of the chronology. b) Identified the processes involved in the diffusion of joint mother and baby admissions in the UK, and explored why the practice was sustained (or not). c) Contributed new information to the continued development of innovation diffusion theory and research, and its application to health care service and practice development. Methods: A historical method was used in the study and was reported through the use of historical narrative and analysis. Data was collated from primary and secondary sources of documented evidence which was used to inform the history of joint mother and baby admissions across the UK. Data was analysed using the theoretical framework of diffusion of innovation (Rogers, 2003). Findings: Two versions of the same innovation were identified: joint admissions to side rooms of general adult psychiatric wards or annexed areas of the wards and joint admissions to specialist mother and baby units. Neither version of the practice followed the normal S-curve pattern of adoption in terms of frequency and rate of adoption. After a period of approximately 63 years there are 24 facilities for the provision of joint admissions in the NHS in the UK. The main influencers to the adoption of the practice was perception of risk, social networks internal and external to the NHS, the presence of clinical and political champions to drive the adoption and implementation of the innovation and policy entrepreneurship by clinicians working in the clinical field of perinatal mental health. The development of specific policy, guidelines and in Scotland, legislation, has resulted in a move during the last decade from joint admissions being diffused naturally to side room admissions being actively withdrawn and specialist psychiatric mother and baby units actively being disseminated. There is strong evidence that the diffusion process for specialist mother and baby units is still in motion at the time of reporting. Conclusion: Two competing versions of the same innovation had unusual patterns of diffusion. The influencers identified as relevant to the diffusion patterns of each version of the innovation were essentially the same influencers but they were used in different ways to affect change: rejection of one version of the innovation in favour of adoption of the other. The main influencers on the diffusion of joint admissions changed over the time line of the adoption pattern. Barriers to diffusion included the absence of evidence of effectiveness, the absence of economic evaluation, the position in service divisions of perinatal mental health as a field of practice and the absence of succession planning across professional groups. Recommendations are made for future research.

This study examines changes in British financial reporting that are in the progress with the focus on the year 2012. The subject of the analysis are the differences in selected areas between the new proposals (FREDs 46-48) and current FRSs, former proposals (FREDs 43-45), IFRS for SME, and "full" IFRS. The results suggest that Britain continues to preserve some particular treatments, even though those are not fully in line with IFRS for SME or "full" IFRS. In addition to this, formats of the financial statements according to UK GAAP were examined. The result suggests that the current formats defined by the company law will be preserved. The popularity of vertical balance sheet, which is typical for the UK, is illustrated by examining financial statements of selected companies.

Ecclesiology of Antonín Salajka (1901-1975) The following work presents an ecclesiological analysis of the publication by prof. Antonín Salajka (1901-1975). In the first part, it submits the biography of the author. This author was the first czech catholic priest laureated in Pontifical Institute of Oriental Studies in Rome (in 1930). In the second part, it closely inteprets the very ecclesiology of the author itself. Salajka - theologist is introduced from several perspectives as well. First we supplied a suggestion for periodization of his scientific work. There we proposed two periods in congruence with a paradigm change of ecclesiastic-social circumstances, including changes of theological studies, which evidently affected our author's life and scientific work. The two proposed periods are: (1) 1930-1950, i.e. scientifically paramount and fundamental; (2) 1950-1975. Further, we introduced areas which fell under Salajka's interest: unionism, eastern christian churches and the problem of christian unification, eastern dogmatic theology, Church Slavonic, the study of christian East, dogmatic theology, so called theologia comparata, but also ecumenism, theological realisation, method in theology, fundamental theology, moral theology, last but not least pedagogical activity. The main subject in his...

This study examines the social shaping of digital radio in Europe and provides new insights about the main competing technologies and the discourses built around their capabilities. The radio frequency spectrum is a limited resource and in order to be used in the most efficient way different organizations have been researching optimizing standards since the mid-1980s. The Eureka-147 project produced the first European digital broadcasting standard DAB whose development have been initially fostered by public service broadcasters and electronics manufacturers, consequently by commercial broadcasters and governmental institutions. The design and policy of DAB did not manage to grasp the attention and support of all the actors present in the nascent digital radio industry. A decade after its launch DAB was followed by other digital radio standards, as DAB+ and DRM, in the role of complements/competitors. At the same time the Internet started to be used as infrastructure for delivering radio or sound entertainment content. Thirty years after the beginning of the European digital radio experience, the picture is still complex and no technology achieved a complete and harmonized implementation. Across Europe, countries have been involved in the digitalization of radio to different extent: Norway announced FM transmissions shutdown in 2017, UK and Switzerland have developed an almost nationally wide digital network coverage and are about to run their switchover plans, some other countries as Sweden and Italy are still in a transmission-trial and evaluation phase. The history of digital radio in Europe offers ground for a Social Shaping of Technology analysis as exposed in “The Social construction of technological systems” (1987) by Wiebe Bijker, Thomas Hughes and Trevor Pinch. The Social Shaping of Technology claims that technologies and their outcomes are always socially negotiated. According to this theoretical framework and in particular to the Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) methodology, it is possible to highlight a number of social groups negotiating the final technology in the development of every artefact. In particular SCOT allows to find points of interpretative flexibility, namely diverging interpretations that different groups have of a same technology or a particular feature of it. These arguments or discourses are built around a technology or its features in order to foster a particular concerns of the corresponding group. This master thesis analyses the development of digital radio in Europe according to the framework provided by the Social Shaping of Technology, enriching the number of case studies that have been conducted following this framework. In this way the dissertation “The Social Shaping of European Digital Radio” provides an overview on the social, political and economic forces which negotiated the technology throughout its development and provides a deeper understanding of the overall digital media technology industry.

Leadership in general is still perceived as individualistic, masculine and hierarchical. Despite fighting against discrimination and for social justice, third sector organizations are themselves often places of entrenched privilege and limited diversity. Leaders with lived experiences draw on their first-hand experience of social issues and/or injustices and attempt to tackle those problems through their work. They represent a diversity of backgrounds, experiences and capabilities that challenge the homogeneity of third sector leadership. Following critical leadership studies this thesis draws from the standpoints of lived experience leaders to offer new, intersectional perspectives on leadership and to expand and diversify understandings of what it is to lead in third sector organizations. The focus of this thesis’s exploration is the experiences and perceptions of 10 individuals who hold or have held leadership positions within third sector organizations in the UK and Germany. Through the analysis of semi-structured interviews, a phenomenology of lived experience leadership is explored. Drawing from feminist standpoint theory, attention is paid to what lived experience leaders think about leadership generally and lived experience leadership in particular, as well as their perspectives on the systemic leadership structures they exist within and challenge. It is found that lived experience leaders acknowledge ‘traditional,’ ‘mainstream’ concepts of leadership and see their own leadership styles and approaches as distinct from these leadership norms. Their approaches and understandings challenge typical leadership constructions and, strongly influenced by their own lived experiences, promote political self-organization, activism and a socio-economic empowerment of people with lived experiences in order to unravel current social power structures and promote social change. With these key findings, the paper suggests further research to test and expand on the conclusions drawn. Ensuring that leadership positions are accessible to all should be a priority for future development of third sector organizations and beyond. Further research should therefore explore how lived experience leadership can help to gain insights about how to remove barriers to leadership positions efficiently.

The aim of this diploma thesis is the inception, concept and performance of presentation the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague on Facebook since the official launch on the 13th April 2011 to 31 March 2012. The thesis describes the key features of concept, composition of the team, collaboration with other parts of the Faculty of Arts and also the experience of interacting with fans and other presentations. The second part is devoted to a survey of selected communication tools used by the Faculty of Arts, which has been realized in order to determine the opinion of fans of presentation at the end of the first year of operation.