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The Residential Department at Moreland Developments (Pty.) Ltd. (Moreland), the property development arm of the Tongaat-Hulett Group (THG), has for some time questioned the benefits of setting up and maintaining Home Owner Associations (HOAs) for the residential suburbs that they develop. This concern is a consequence of the significant time and cost incurred in setting up and maintaining these associations with very little perceived added value. The intention of this study is to quantify this added value (if it exists) and in so doing, assist management in matching the right product in the right market with the right price. In an effort to try to understand the concept of added value, the writer has chosen a theoretical framework on which to base the research methodology. The writer has used Michael Porter's Value Chain system as this theoretical foundation. The Value Chain disaggregates the various value-adding activities a company performs and establishes which value-creating activities lead to sustainable competitive advantage. This study develops Moreland's Value Chain and enables the writer to hone in on the value creating activity of setting up and maintaining HOAs. A scientific approach is adopted in the research design. A stratified disproportionate random sample was used because of its greater statistical efficiency. A sample size of 93 were interviewed telephonically using a standardized questionnaire containing a mixture of structured and unstructured questions. The five projects chosen were Broadlands, Somerset Park, Gardens, Mount Edgecombe Country Club Estate (MECCE) and Zimbali. Both descriptive and analytical statistical analyses were performed on the 93 data sets. The data shows that the main drivers of value within a HOA are security, architecture, landscaping, general environmental upkeep and maintenance, communication and rules and regulations. In Broadlands and Somerset Park, the main drivers of value at the time of purchase and presently are architectural theme and rules and regulations. For Gardens, MECCE and Zimbali, the main drivers of value at the time of purchase and presently are security and architectural theme. The research objectives were reduced to two hypotheses, which were tested at the 95% level of confidence :- Hypothesis 1: The presence of a HOA has no effect on the decision to purchase vacant land. This hypothesis was not rejected for Broadlands but rejected for the remaining projects as well as for the full population. Judging from the confidence intervals for the project means, it is evident that the presence of a HOA had a positive effect on the decision to purchase in all projects (except Broadlands) and for the full population. Hypothesis 2: The presence of a HOA will not allow Moreland to command a price premium on the sale of vacant land. This hypothesis is rejected for all projects as well as for the full population implying that Moreland can charge a price premium on the sale of vacant land. The only limitation is that the Broadlands price premium cannot, in real terms, be charged as Hypothesis 1 was accepted for Broadlands, as prospective purchasers perceived value but are unwilling to pay for it. The price premium that could be achieved for the projects are as follow Somerset Park 4% to 20% Gardens 1% to 17% Mecce Zimbali 16% 13.5% to to 45% 24.5% Further analysis revealed that when the added value items of HOA are tested against the project, the location of the project is the prime driver of value. However, when security is tested against the project, the project value subordinates to the security effect indicating that security is the only added value item that is more important than location. The writer has made two recommendations to Moreland. The first is that immediate withdrawal from the Broadlands Home Owners Association is necessary as the value created by the establishment of a HOA is not captured, either in full or in part, by Moreland. The second is that Moreland restructure its commitment to the other HOAs in line with the quantified added value ranges. There is no doubt that this work greatly enhances the existing, very limited, body of knowledge on this subject area in South Africa. It is hoped that future research students will expand the existing body of knowledge by future investigating the issues that have limited this study. / Thesis (MBA)-University of Natal, 2002.

Baigiamajame darbe nagrinėjamos „SMScredit.lt“ prekės ženklo keliamos asociacijos. Teorinėje darbo dalyje analizuojama prekės ženklo samprata, prekės ženklo nauda ir vertė, prekės ženklo keliamų asociacijų sukūrimas, vertė, taip pat analizuojama asociacijų visuma kaip prekės ženklo įvaizdis. Šio baigiamojo darbo tikslas – identifikuoti „SMScredit.lt“ prekės ženklo keliamas asociacijas ir išsiaiškinti, kokią įtaką keliamos asociacijos daro vartotojų, kurie nesinaudojo greito kredito paslaugomis, apsisprendimui naudotis „SMScredit.lt“ paslaugomis. Tikslui pasiekti buvo vykdomi dviejų pilotinių fokus grupių interviu bei keturių pagrindinių fokus grupių interviu. Empirinėje darbo dalyje aprašoma kokybinio tyrimo eiga bei pateikiami kokybinio tyrimo rezultatai ir išvados: išsiaiškinta, jog „SMScredit.lt“ prekės ženklas kelia prieštaringas asociacijas – jis suprantamas kaip greitas būdas gauti paskolą trumpąją žinute, rizikingas, bet tuo pačiu patrauklus prekės ženklas. „SMScredit.lt“ prekės ženklas informantams asocijuojasi su įtampa, nuobodumu, šis prekės ženklas informantams neatrodė vertingas. / “SMScredit.lt” associations are analyzed in the Bachelor thesis. The theoretical part analyzes the concept of brand, benefits and value of the brand, creation and value of brand associations, associations as brand image. The purpose of Bachelor thesis is to identify associations of “SMScredit.lt” brand and identify the effects caused by brand associations in making a decision to use “SMScredit.lt” services by consumers, who did not use fast credit services.In order to achieve the purpose, two pilot focus groups and four basic focus groups were conducted. Qualitative research process is described and qualitative results and conclusions are presented in the empirical part. Made clear that “SMScredit.lt” brand raises the controversial association - it is seen as a quick way to get a loan instant message, risky, but appealing brand at the same time. For informants the brand ’’SMScredit.lt“ seems to be not valuable and it is associated with stress and boredom.

In this paper we develop an alternative to minimum support which utilizes knowledge of the process which generates transaction data and allows for highly skewed frequency distributions. We apply a simple stochastic model (the NB model), which is known for its usefulness to describe item occurrences in transaction data, to develop a frequency constraint. This model-based frequency constraint is used together with a precision threshold to find individual support thresholds for groups of associations. We develop the notion of NB-frequent itemsets and present two mining algorithms which find all NB-frequent itemsets in a database. In experiments with publicly available transaction databases we show that the new constraint can provide significant improvements over a single minimum support threshold and that the precision threshold is easier to use. (author's abstract) / Series: Working Papers on Information Systems, Information Business and Operations

Throughout the course of the 19th century mankind experienced a lot of changes to the way they were used to live life, mostly due to the expansion of the industrial revolution. But the biggest change was perhaps the change in the conditions for women all over the world. Women no longer wanted to live their lives behind closed doors looking out from the window and thinking of all the things that they could have done with their lives. They wanted to be a part of society and they, sometimes literally, fought for change. In Sweden women got the right to vote in 1921. The way there was long and difficult with a lot of obstacles and prejudice to overcome. But not all of the associations had voting rights for women on their agenda. Some of them were strictly philanthropic. After reading Eva Österberg’s book “Rummet vidgas”, where she discusses her theory about 19th century women in Sweden and the “closed room” that used to be their arena of movement and its expansion during the 19th century, I decided to do a research in my hometown and therefor took a closer look at the first association started by women in 1854 in the little town of Eskilstuna, 90 km from Stockholm. The association was started by a few leading women and their goal was to help the less fortunate children of the community with clothes and shoes so they could attend school and later on be useful members of the society. In doing so the women themselves took their rightful place in the public society. The women were very successful, they achieved well more than they had set out for and the association managed to exist for over a hundred years helping thousands of children.

Background: Prospective memory (ProM) consists of remembering that some action needs to be performed in the future and when (detecting the Intent Trigger), and what the action is (Recalling the Content of the trigger). The Intent Trigger is bound by a forward association to the Content Recall, and the Content Recall has a backward association to the intent Trigger. In situations which present multiple, interleaving ProM tasks to operators it is not known how subsequently-presented ProM tasks interfere with the associations between the Intent Trigger and Content Recall of the original ProM task. Objective: The current study investigated the effect of presenting multiple, interleaved ProM tasks on timely detection of the Intent Trigger and accurate Recall of the Content of the original ProM task. Method: Participants encoded a ProM task (AB) in an air traffic control simulation. They then were interrupted with a second ProM task. The ProM interruption task was different from the original ProM task in either the Intent Trigger (AB, CB), Content Recall (AB, AD), or both Intent Trigger and Content Recall (i.e., a new ProM task, AB, CD). A control condition involved interrupting the participant with a weather report. Results: Detection of the Intent Trigger was significantly worse after a ProM interruption as compared to a weather interruption; a similar pattern of results, but with marginal significance, was also found for Content Recall. Additionally, a ProM task that interfered with backward association (AB, CB) was no better or worse than doing two unrelated ProM tasks (AB, CD) on the detection of the Intent Trigger. However, a task that presented a new forward association (AB, AD) was worse than performing two unrelated ProM tasks (AB, CD) on Recall of the Content. The results are discussed in the context of designing memory aids to support interleaved ProM tasks in dynamic environments.

Thesis (M.Com. (Tourism))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010.

Thesis (M.Com. (Tourism))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010.

Colour has encountered to be a significant part in marketing, which advantageously can be used in todays competitive market. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to analyze the colours varying associations and present ideas how colours can affect the hotel business. In coherence with the purpose we deveoled the research question, which resulted in following: How can hotels affect their servicescape and identity by the help of colour? The study has a qualitative method that began in an empirical problem that has been tested against theory, which subsequently developed the research question. This implies that our study alternated between induction and deduction. The empirical data was collected using semi-structured interviews where respondents consists of color specialists and general managers in the hotel industry. During the working process we have encountered that colour holds general, cultural and traditional associations. We also discovered that hotel company's servicescape, identity and colour are strongly related to each other. This affects, creates and conveys feelings and can be competitive advantages if the choice of colour conforms with the hotel company's identity. The final discussion presents varying colour associations and ideas how colours can affect the hotel business.

Thesis (M.A.) - Carleton University, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 127-140). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.