This thesis investigates the status and the role of Multinational Corporations in the Arab World. Its main hypothesis is that the Multinationals today represent a permanent feature as the major world-wide source of modern technology. As such, the Arab countries will continue relying, into the foreseeable future, upon technology produced, owned or controlled by these global firms. The research finds that a century of increasing integration with the western industrialised countries, primarily shaped by the activities of the multinational corporations, has nevertheless left the Arab region less industrialised and more technologically and institutionally backward than many other parts of the world. The Arab Nation as a whole, in all its diversity of countries and regions, has failed to economically or industrially advance at the same rate as other newly industrialising regions. The lack of commitment to national and regional development needs in the Arab World on the part of most multinationals, is matched by an equal absence of any clear sense of purpose and dedication on the part of the Arab countries themselves. Despite the proposition by some Arab professionals and elites that the Arab States must consider breaking with any development strategy that substantially relies on access to capital and technology provided by foreign multinationals, the research contends that, in view of the current underdeveloped state of indigenous technology in the Arab World, the contemplation of the option of "de-linking" from the multinationals is neither possible nor desirable. The fact is, that the Arab States, individually or as whole, are not as yet prepared for the challenges that such a go-it-alone development strategy would imply. The research also finds that, as the multinational' behaviour is governed by diverse objectives, helping out the developing countries of the Arab World to build-up their technological base is not generally one of their distinctive goals. They have their own "growth" strategy while each of the individual Arab States has its own "development" policy. The objectives of each differ, as shown in this thesis, and are often incompatible. Yet, for a multinational corporation to secure profit, growth and security, it will need the goodwill of the Arab countries, while the latter, in order to start building their technological base, need the multinationals. Thus, objectively, they need each other and a fruitful cooperation between the two parties depends on the convergence of two strategies, which usually need to undergo many changes in order to accommodate each other's diverse interests. This means that, what a foreign multinational can really offer depends on how much an Arab country, individually or in collaboration with other Arab countries, may actually be prepared or able to take. From the latter's viewpoint, the ability to take is dependent on the extent to which the Arab countries can cooperate effectively together. The recent trend in the region towards forging economic integration, in the form of regional groupings among neighbouring Arab countries, is widely heralded to be an essential step in the right direction. However, in view of the considerable variations in natural resource endowments which exist among the countries of the Arab World, it has been increasingly suggested by the Arab participants of our main survey, that inter-Arab multinational joint ventures constitute a highly desirable form of organising economic activity, and of accomplishing effective economic cooperation among the countries of the region. Most importantly, the thesis demonstrates that there are many areas in which conventional economic theories are deficient in explaining multinationals' behaviour and impact on the Arab World. Deficiencies between theory and practice arc referred to throughout the work and discussed in particular detail in Chapters 4 and 12. A major conclusion of this study is that, the Arab governments which once feared the multinationals are now actively interested in seeking to court and accommodate them more effectively to local development needs. There is increasing evidence that the Arab countries have learned to bargain with multinationals to make them better serve their specific objectives and interests. Through more contacts and interactions, previously contrasting positions have softened and a wave of pragmatic attitudes on both sides is emerging to promote greater recognition of the mutual interests involved. It is the hope of the author of this thesis that his work will encourage even greater mutual understanding and cooperation between the Arab States and multinational partners in the future. Indeed it is only through such cooperation that joint efforts can be effectively used to promote beneficial development and growth for the future prosperity of the Arab Nation as a whole.

This study focuses on the negative impact that family supportive supervisor behaviors may have on career advancement for women in addition to the positive impact of family supportive supervisor behaviors in reducing work-family conflict. Data was collected using an online questionnaire through a university research management system including student participants and snowball sampling through email and social media platforms for a combined sample of 154 participants. Our results showed that increases in family supportive supervisor behaviors is associated with decreases in work-family conflict in agreement with findings in the literature. More specifically, the study showed that family supportive supervisor behaviors are only related to work-family conflict when supervisor’s hold primarily egalitarian gender beliefs. Contrary to our hypotheses, family supportive supervisor beliefs were positively related to a predictor of career advancement: Career mentoring. While our findings provide clarity for subordinate outcomes when supervisors hold primarily egalitarian beliefs, future research should further examine the potentially negative impacts of family supportive supervisor behaviors in the context of subordinates who have supervisors that hold primarily traditional gender beliefs.

The purpose of this study was to determine the existence of a glass ceiling effect within community colleges by examining faculty, staff and administrator's perceptions of a glass ceiling as it relates to the advancement of women at their institutions. This was done by using a cross-sectional survey administered electronically to faculty, staff and administrators in community colleges in the United States who were members of the American Association of Community Colleges. Four hundred fifty seven participants provided responses for the study. Results of ANOVA of perceptions of facilitators and barriers to advancement revealed there was a significant difference in perception between genders related to barriers to advancement, with females finding internal structural/job opportunities and organizational culture presenting more obstacles to advancement than males. Males significantly agreed more than females that a positive attitude toward women existed in their institutions. Females significantly agreed more than males that barriers hindered the advancement of women and that a glass ceiling existed in their institutions. Multiple regression analysis indicated gender was a significant predictor of perceptions of internal structural and organizational culture barriers to advancement. Work profile characteristics were not found to be significant predictors of the perception of facilitators or barriers. Logistic regression analysis indicated neither individual characteristics nor work profile characteristics were able to predict denial of promotion. These findings may be used to encourage those in authority who are able to make hiring and policy decisions to more closely examine the organizational structure, culture and climate in their institutions to foster an atmosphere conducive to productive work environments for all employees.

When people are asked to compare themselves to others, they frequently engage in self-enhancement. Further, prior work has shown that when engaging in self-enhancement, people tend to downplay how often they engage in negative behaviors to a greater extent than they highlight how often they engage in positive behaviors. Interestingly, the opposite pattern is shown for traits: people highlight their positive traits to a greater extent than they downplay their negative traits. In the current work, we examined direct and indirect social comparisons for sets of health, eating, social, and moral dimensions. Across our first 7 studies, we demonstrated that people downplayed negative aspects of the self to a greater extent than they highlighted positive aspects of the self when the aspect was not self-relevant, while people showed little to no preference for downplaying negative aspects of the self relative to highlighting positive aspects of the self when the aspect was self-relevant. In Study 8, we demonstrated that this pattern is partially mediated by recall of feedback about the average other student, but not by recall of one’s self-standing. Together these findings integrate the different patterns of self-enhancement shown for behaviors and traits by demonstrating that differences in the self-relevance of the dimension may be the best cue as to whether people are most likely to self-enhance by downplaying negatives or emphasizing positives. / 10000-01-01

Este estudo teve como objetivo avaliar as alterações dentoesqueléticas e tegumentares do aparelho Twin-block por meio de 42 terradiografias em norma lateral que foram obtidas em duas épocas, T1 antes do tratamento e T2 ao final do tratamento ortopédico de 21 jovens brasileiros, de ambos os gêneros, com idade média de 10,5 anos (mínimo: 9,25 anos; máximo: 12,5 anos) portadores de má oclusão de Classe II com retrognatismo mandibular tratados com este aparelho na Disciplina de Ortodontia da Faculdade de Odontologia de Bauru, Universidade de São Paulo (FOB-USP) e comparados a três amostras com as mesmas características tratadas com os aparelhos ortopédicos Bionator (22 jovens, com idade média de 10,42 anos, mínimo: 8,08 anos; máximo: 12,58 anos) e Herbst (22 jovens, com idade média de 10,48 anos, mínimo: 8,00 anos; máximo:12,75 anos) a um grupo controle de Classe II (24 jovens, com idade média de 9,97 anos, mínimo: 8,33 anos; máximo: 11,67 anos), sem tratamento; num total de 178 telerradiografias em norma lateral. Todos os pacientes se encontravam no mesmo estágio de maturação das vértebras cervicais (início: CVMSII; final: CVMSIII). ANOVA, teste de Tukey e teste t pareado foram aplicados. Os resultados mostraram que todos os aparelhos melhoraram a relação maxilomandibular, as relações dentárias, diminuindo a severidade da má oclusão de Classe II, porém com maiores efeitos esqueléticos nos grupos Twin-block e Bionator, com maior protrusão mandibular e crescimento mandibular, corpo e ramo, respectivamente, e mais efeitos dentoalvelares no grupo Herbst com significante vestibularização e protrusão dos incisivos inferiores. / This study had as aim to assess the dentoskeletal and soft tissue effects of the Twin-block appliance by means of 42 lateral cephalometric radiographs obtained in T1, before treatment, and T2, at the end of the orthopedic treatment, of 21 Brazilian subjects of both genders, mean age of 10.5 years, minimum: 9.25 years; maximum: 12.5 years with Class II malocclusion associated to a mandibular retrognathism treated in the Orthodontic Discipline at Bauru Dental School, University of Sao Paulo and compared to three samples with the same features with the functional appliances, Bionator (22 subjects, 10.42 years, minimum: 8.08 years; maximum:12.58 years), Herbst (22 subjects, 10.48 years; minimum: 8.00; maximum:12.75 years) and an untreated Class II control group (24 subjects, 9.97 years, minimum: 8.33 years; maximum: 11.67 years) in a total of 178 lateral cephalometric radiographs. All patients were in the same cervical vertebral maturation stages (initial: CVMSII; final: CVMSIII). Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) , Tukey test and pared t test were applied. The results showed that all appliances corrected the maxillomandibular relationship, dental relationships reducing the Class II malocclusion severity with more skeletal effects, significant mandibular protrusion, mandibular growth, body and ramus, with Twin-block and Bionator, respectively, and more dentoalveolar effects with Herbst appliance, with significant protrusion and vestibular inclination of the lower incisors.

No description available.

Introduction: Velopharyngeal inadequacy (VPI) may result in inappropriate oral/nasal coupling during the production of speech sounds, resulting in unwanted nasal resonance and/or nasal air emission. Orthognathic surgeries such as maxillary and/or mandibular advancements are also known to change skeletal and muscular structures resulting in changes affecting velopharyngeal closure (VPC). Although many studies have reported on the effect of maxillary advancement surgery on VPI for patients with cleft lip and palate, the effect of mandibular advancement on VPI has not been studied at length. The purpose of this study was to elucidate the effect of temporary prosthetic mandibular advancement on velopharyngeal function. Methods: Fourteen subjects (7 males, 7 females) with no history of craniofacial abnormalities or speech disorders were recruited. The mean age was 35 years (range = 26-60). Acoustic nasalance measurements were obtained during nasal sentences and during sentences without nasal consonants in two conditions; normally, and while wearing an elastic mandibular advancement (EMA) appliance to advance the mandible by 13mm. In addition, subjects were asked to produce five repetitions of the sentence "Ten men came in when Jane left" while recordings were obtained with a videoendoscopy/phototransducer system that sensed the amount of light passing through the velopharyngeal orifice. The endoscope and fiber optic light were inserted through the subject's middle nasal meatus and positioned above the velum. The phototransducer fiber was extended through the velopharyngeal port into the upper oropharynx to detect light passing through the orifice as the velopharyngeal mechanism opened and closed. Individual subject's outcomes with and without the EMA appliance were analyzed statistically using paired t-test for Nasalance test, and one-way ANOVA/independent samples t-test for phototransducer test. Results: Nasalance did not deteriorate, but significantly decreased for the ‘nasal’ sentences after mandibular advancement, whereas changes in nasalance were not significant for the sentences containing no nasal consonants after mandibular advancement. Mandibular advancement by a 13 mm using an EMA appliance did not significantly affect VPC. Instead, large variability among subjects in response to mandibular advancement. For 7 of the 14 subjects, the extent of VPC decreased significantly (p < .05) under the advanced mandible condition compared to the normal condition (without the EMA appliance). On the other hand, 5 subjects showed significantly (p < .05) increased VPC when their mandibles were advanced. For 2 subjects, VPC was not significantly changed with the advanced mandible. Conclusions: The outcomes of this study suggested that there was no statistical evidence to support that nasality was deteriorated by a 13mm mandibular advancement, which agreed with recent studies describing velopharyngeal function and nasality after orthognathic surgeries. VPC was not affected by mandibular advancement. Responses of the nasalance and VPC to mandibular advancement were dependent on the individuals. Further investigation such as electromyography method is needed to understand how velopharyngeal function and speech respond to mandibular advancement more definitely.

Large datasets require efficient processing, storage and management to efficiently extract useful information for innovation and decision-making. This dissertation demonstrates novel approaches and algorithms using virtual memory approach, parallel computing and cyberinfrastructure. First, we introduce a tailored user-level virtual memory system for parallel algorithms that can process large raster data files in a desktop computer environment with limited memory. The application area for this portion of the study is to develop parallel terrain analysis algorithms that use multi-threading to take advantage of common multi-core processors for greater efficiency. Second, we present two novel parallel WaveCluster algorithms that perform cluster analysis by taking advantage of discrete wavelet transform to reduce large data to coarser representations so data is smaller and more easily managed than the original data in size and complexity. Finally, this dissertation demonstrates an HPC gateway service that abstracts away many details and complexities involved in the use of HPC systems including authentication, authorization, and data and job management.

This study tried to emphasize the differences between Sweden and the US when it comes to women’s career advancement to leading positions within the academic world. The differences between the countries were examined by studying women in leadership positions in universities in both countries. The three main research questions that this study was supposed to answer were: -          What are the different barriers women in leadership positions in the academic world encounter when advancing in Sweden and the US? -          How high is the importance of and different ways of networking, necessity of past experience, primary obstacles and other qualities or factors for career advancement in Sweden and the US? -          What stimulates and inspires a woman in Sweden versus a woman in the US to make career advancements to leading positions in academia? The main method that was used in this study was interviews and comparison of the answers from the interviews with earlier research and theories within the subject. Seven women with some kind of leading position within academia were interviewed; three in Sweden and four in USA. The results showed that the main differences and similarities in factors between the participants in Sweden and the participants in the US were (1) balancing family and work, (2) sex discrimination, (3) working conditions and promotions, (4) networking and mentorship and the last unexpected factor was (5) culture. The last factor, the cultural factor, was not processed in this study because this factor was a result of our research and was not researched about prior to the interviews. To conclude, the results showed that gender equality is higher in Sweden according to the responds of the participants.

The existence of informal male networks, sometimes referred to as "old boys' networks", tends to exclude women from top jobs. More and more women have come to realize that they need professional contacts for a successful career and that they also needed each other’s support. Therfore many women are joining women-only networks or trying to create there own informal networks. The purpose is to establish useful contacts, learn new things, and be able to share their concerns with other women in the same situation. For some it gives an opportunity to find a mentor who can guide them. The aim of this bachelor thesis is to study if women’s lacking access to male networks is an obstacle for career advancement and to give an insight into women-only networks and their effectiveness to support women leaders and managers and increase women's representation in senior positions. The empirical findigs were conducted in Växjö, Sweden; in the networks “Fröken” and “Rotary”, and one women-only network in Linz, Austria; the BPW, “Business &amp; Professional Women”.