The relevance and reliability of annual financial reports as a basis for making decisions about an organisation came in dispute after a series of corporate collapses. Sustainability reports have similarly suffered weaknesses and stakeholders are unable to form a comprehensive picture of an organisation’s performance and its ability to create and sustain value. Integrated reporting incorporates concise and material information from financial statements and the sustainability report and other sources to enable stakeholders to evaluate the organisation’s performance and to make an informed assessment about its ability to create and sustain value. The focus of this study was to investigate the opinion of employees as stakeholders of a South African bank and their perception of the relevance of the elements in an integrated report, if they had to assess the ability of an organisation to sustain value in the future. A literature study was conducted to address the concept of integrated reporting and the integrated report as well as relevant aspects. Based on the literature study, integrated reporting should enable stakeholders to assess the ability of the organisation to create and sustain value over the short-, medium- and long-term. Special attention has been given to the elements to be included in an integrated report as suggested by the IRC SA’s framework and employees as stakeholders of organisations. The latter has been used as basis of the empirical study that was conducted. The empirical study focused on the opinion of employees regarding the relevance of the eight elements in an integrated report as stakeholders of a South African bank and it was conducted by means of a self-completion questionnaire. The internal consistency and reliability of the questionnaire was assessed by calculating Cronbach alpha coefficients and it had acceptable reliability. Frequency distributions, mean values and standard deviations were calculated as well as independent t-tests and Anovas to determine the differences between the means of different groups within the selected demographic variables and the constructs. Furthermore, effect size values (d-values) were used to indicate if there were practical significant differences between any demographical variables regarding the constructs and individual questions. In the final chapter, conclusions were drawn based on the literature and empirical study. It was evident from the empirical study that most of the respondents found the elements to be either moderately or totally relevant to be included in a report, if the ability of an organisation has to be assessed to sustain value in the future. Recommendations were provided on three elements (business model, remuneration policies and analytical commentary) and the report was concluded by recommending possible future research that could be conducted based on this study. / Thesis (MBA)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013

Consumers frequently face mismatch risk as goods they purchase may be deemed inappropriate or below expectations. Due to this risk, consumers may avoid purchasing such goods and consequently hurt retailers. Can the emergence of peer-to-peer (P2P) marketplaces benefit retailers? On the one hand, P2P marketplaces can mitigate some of this risk by allowing consumers to trade mismatched goods. On the other hand, P2P marketplaces impose a threat on retailers as they compete with them over consumers. We develop a two-period model that highlights the effects introduced by P2P marketplaces. We show that a P2P marketplace benefits both the retailer and consumers when the wholesale price is sufficiently high and hurts them both when the wholesale price is low. The introduction of a P2P marketplace can relieve consumers from the mismatch risk and induces the retailer to post a higher price. However, when the wholesale price is low, the platform manages to extract most, or all, of the consumers surplus and directly hurts consumers, and eventually the retailer who experiences lower sales in both periods. With a high wholesale price the P2P marketplace is limited in its ability of extracting consumer surplus, which increases the retailer sales and benefits both the retailer and consumers. We further observe that social welfare is generally higher unless the wholesale price is relatively low.

Training aids can play an important role in the training of athletes, but only if they assist in the learning of correct technique. The design of a training aid differs considerably from the design of other products because it is crucial that the mechanisms used in learning a skill must be taken into consideration. Research has shown that this can be achieved by: encouraging specific motor skills, providing feedback, providing support in a safe environment, permitting repetition, permitting progressive learning, or by providing some combination of these. For this to be possible an in-depth understanding of the biomechanical requirements of the sporting activity is essential. A study was carried out to determine the fundamental requirements of a training aid, and to then design and build two working prototype gymnastics training aids. Elite training sessions were observed and High Performance coaches were interviewed to establish the skills that required a training aid and the customer requirements for such a device. On the basis of this information two contrasting gymnastics skills were chosen. The first was a handstand on the rings, a complex motor control skill requiring the gymnast to balance on two moving pendulums, requested by 100% of the coaches interviewed. The second skill was a backward handspring, often the first backward dynamic skill most gymnasts will learn, requested by 89% of the coaches interviewed. The training aids were required to simplify the learning of the skill, whilst still utilising correct technique. The backward handspring aid was also required to effectively support the gymnast but not obstruct a good performance. A biomechanical analysis of each skill was carried out in order to inform the design of suitable training aids. The aids were designed and manufactured in accordance with British Standards, and were then biomechanically assessed to ensure that they correctly aided the learning of the skills. In order to assess the aids: displacement, force and muscle activation data were collected and were used to compare the gymnastics skills with and without the aids. The data showed that the training aids replicated the correct biomechanical requirements of the actual skills: the handstand aid was shown to utilise the same control mechanism as was observed on the rings, and the backward handspring aid permitted a unobstructed good performance and assisted in the learning of the skills with correct technique. Both aids were also demonstrated to out-perform any of the existing training aids.

>Magister Scientiae - MSc / Tuberculosis (TB) is currently one of the major public health challenges in South Africa, and in many countries. Mycobacterium tuberculosis is among the leading causes of morbidity and mortality. It is known that tuberculosis is a curable infectious disease. In the case of incomplete treatment, however, the remains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in the human system often results in the bacterium developing resistance to antibiotics. This leads to relapse and treatment against the resistant bacterium is extremely expensive and difficult. The aim of this work is to present and analyse mathematical models of the population dynamics of tuberculosis for the purpose of studying the effects of efficient treatment versus incomplete treatment. We analyse the spread, asymptotic behavior and possible eradication of the disease, versus persistence of tuberculosis. In particular, we consider inflow of infectives into the population, and we study the effects of screening. A sub-model will be studied to analyse the transmission dynamics of TB in an isolated population. The full model will take care of the inflow of susceptibles as well as inflow of TB infectives into the population. This dissertation enriches the existing literature with contributions in the form of optimal control and stochastic perturbation. We also show how stochastic perturbation can improve the stability of an equilibrium point. Our methods include Lyapunov functions, optimal control and stochastic differential equations. In the stability analysis of the DFE we show how backward bifurcation appears. Various phenomena are illustrated by way of simulations.

The Big Enterprises all over the world are setting up their services in cloud as this is cheaper and offers a lot of other benefits. These services have to be updated from time to time and for this, the enterprises have to upgrade their systems in the cloud. During these upgrades, the enterprises face a lot of problems known as compatibility issues. The companies are investing big time to avoid these compatibility issues. The investment could be in money, time, labor etc. also known as effort. Therefore, it is in our interest to attempt to reduce this effort. In this study, our main objectives are to calculate the effort required to maintain the backward compatibility during the upgrade process in the cloud and to find ways to reduce this effort. Reducing the effort will help the companies cut down their investment. A hypothesis was introduced saying that the network usage was dependent on the upgrade method chosen. We have chosen experimentation to be the suitable research method. To run our experiments, we have created a virtual environment similar to that of Ericsson. The experimental values were recorded. We recorded the values such as code complexity, total time for the upgrade process and the network usage during the experiment. Using these values, we tried to estimate the effort and scale it to real time scenarios. Using ANOVA we proved that our null hypothesis was correct. The results have then been discussed in detail and RQ1 is answered. Later RQ2 is answered based on the answer for RQ1. Through our analysis we were able to get a rough estimate of the effort (labor, time, cost) required to maintain backward compatibility. We propose that the existence of the tool mentioned will reduce the effort considerably. The features of the tool are explained in detail. Some future work as the actual development of the tool has been suggested.

It has been shown that backward doubly stochastic differential equations (BDSDEs) provide a probabilistic representation for a certain class of nonlinear parabolic stochastic partial differential equations (SPDEs). It has also been shown that the solution of a BDSDE with Lipschitz coefficients can be approximated by first discretizing time and then calculating a sequence of conditional expectations. Given fixed points in time and space, this approximation has been shown to converge in mean square. In this thesis, we investigate the approximation of solutions of BDSDEs with coefficients that are measurable in time and space using a time discretization scheme with a view towards applications to SPDEs. To achieve this, we require the underlying forward diffusion to have smooth coefficients and we consider convergence in a norm which includes a weighted spatial integral. This combination of smoother forward coefficients and weaker norm allows the use of an equivalence of norms result which is key to our approach. We additionally take a brief look at the approximation of solutions of a class of infinite horizon BDSDEs with a view towards approximating stationary solutions of SPDEs. Whilst we remain agnostic with regards to the implementation of our discretization scheme, our scheme should be amenable to a Monte Carlo simulation based approach. If this is the case, we propose that in addition to being attractive from a performance perspective in higher dimensions, such an approach has a potential advantage when considering measurable coefficients. Specifically, since we only discretize time and effectively rely on simulations of the underlying forward diffusion to explore space, we are potentially less vulnerable to systematically overestimating or underestimating the effects of coefficients with spatial discontinuities than alternative approaches such as finite difference or finite element schemes that do discretize space. Another advantage of the BDSDE approach is that it is possible to derive an upper bound on the error of our method for a fairly broad class of conditions in a single analysis. Furthermore, our conditions seem more general in some respects than is typically considered in the SPDE literature.

This Thesis explores the connectiveness of the West Florida Shelf’s various areas of economic and ecological importance by considering five case studies of varying dynamic forcing influences and time. The advection of water about the shelf moves nutrients and has a direct impact on the shelf’s ecology and the determination of whether or not the shelf will be oligotrophic at any given time or location. The case studies are analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively after quasi-isopycnal particle trajectory calculations are completed for each. The findings support a combination of local and deep-ocean forcing being ideal for the maximum advection and opportunity for potential connectivity between areas of the shelf, and provide a solid guide for moving forward with a considerable ensemble of studies in the future to approach the question from a statistical perspective. The numerical scheme used to calculate the particle trajectories is a 4th order Runge-Kutta method. The scheme is investigated for it appropriateness and pitfalls as a backward trajectory calculation tool by direct comparison between forward trajectory calculations and attempting to replicate the result in the backward direction. The findings support that the more linear the trajectory and the more restrictive the dynamics acting upon a particle at any given location, the better the backward and forward replication will be, although it is still an approximation, much like any other iterative tool used for approximating a solution to an ordinary differential equation.

Flow with separation and reattachment has been encountered in many thermo-fluidic devices. Although it causes energy loss due to pressure drops, it is sometimes intentionally used for heat transfer enhancement. To improve the performance of heat exchangers, understanding the details of such complicated flow and thermal structures is very important. Therefore, attention was paid in this study to a representative typical simple model that can generate separating and reattaching flow called backward-facing step (BFS) flow, the fundamental flow and thermal characteristics of a 3-D BFS flow have been investigated experimentally and a flow modification was also made by numerical simulation aimed to promote the heat transfer enhancement. / 博士(工学) / Doctor of Philosophy in Engineering / 同志社大学 / Doshisha University

No description available.

With the discontinuation of Interbank Offered Rates(IBOR), traders found some al-ternative reference rates to replace IBOR. Backward-looking rates are widely accepted new benchmark interest rates. In this thesis, we introduce and subsequently proceed to explore backward-looking rate model and continue doing some re-valuation of interest rate instruments under the backward-looking rates framework.