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Made available in DSpace on 2015-09-25T12:19:21Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 RaimundoCavalcanteRodrigues.pdf: 1344536 bytes, checksum: db9a50bd4d39c7e207c02b8379c77096 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-10-17 / The present study describes the diverse socioeconomic aspects that contribute to family income increase of cooperative members at the Cooperativa Agropecuária do Cariri Coapecal. The idea of cooperative firstly appeared in the nineteenth century when the first cooperative was founded in Rochdale, Manchester, Britain in response to the Industrial Revolution advance that had introduced the steam machine to replace manpower available then. The method used in the research was a case study including a descriptive and bibliographic field survey. A population of 900 cooperative members were involved in the study, being 187 out of them used as a sample for the investigation. A questionnaire involving three aspects was used to collect the data in the survey. The first aspect containing 8 questions related to the socioeconomic profile of cooperative members; the second with 6 questions referred to property, being the third aspect with 9 questions about cattle raising. The whole questionnaire comprised of 23 closed questions aiming to estimate the increase rate in the family income of the people surveyed. Finally, after compiling and interpreting the variables of the research, the study showed there was, indeed, an increase in the family income of those members, and it confirmed that cooperativeness is an effective alternative to reach this goal. Thus, it is expected that cooperative managers ponder over this reality and that they be willing to meet their members´ requests. / O presente estudo teve por objetivo analisar os principais fatores que contribuíram para a elevação da renda familiar dos cooperados da Cooperativa Agropecuária do Cariri Coapecal. O cooperativismo surgiu no século XIX, com a fundação, em 1844, da primeira cooperativa, em Rochdale, bairro de Manchester na Inglaterra, em resposta ao avanço da Revolução Industrial, que introduzia a máquina a vapor em substituição a mão-de-obra disponível na época. O método utilizado foi o estudo de caso. A pesquisa realizada quanto ao objeto foi do tipo bibliográfica e de campo e quanto aos fins a descritiva. O universo pesquisado foi composto por uma população de 900 cooperados, sendo destes retirada uma mostra de 187 cooperados. Utilizou-se como instrumento de coleta de dados a aplicação de questionário, com vinte e três perguntas fechadas, visando delinear o perfil socioeconômico dos cooperados, como também identificar os aspectos relacionados com a propriedade e as atividades desenvolvidas referente à pecuária, onde se buscou aferir o grau de elevação da renda familiar dos pesquisados. E por fim, depois de agrupadas e interpretadas às variáveis inerentes a referida pesquisa, o presente estudo demonstrou que a maioria dos pesquisados teve realmente comprovada à elevação na sua renda familiar, confirmando que é o cooperativismo uma alternativa na microrregião do cariri oriental paraibano, para se alcançar esse objetivo. Desse modo, esperamos que os gestores da Cooperativa reflitam e busquem atender às reivindicações feitas pelos seus cooperados.

The purpose of this study was to determine tourism students’ perceptions of their Experiential Learning (EL) experiences based on the Predicting Learner Advancement through Cooperative Education (PLACE) four-component model. The research objectives were to ascertain Experiential Learning’s impact on the four components namely Personal Development, Career Development, Work-skills Development and Academic Development. This study fits within the pragmatic paradigm and utilised an explanatory mixed methods research design which requires quantitative data to be collected first with follow-up qualitative data. The data collection instrument for the quantitative data was the PLACE model, which was in the form of a survey questionnaire and the data generating strategy for the qualitative data was individual interviews. The findings of the data were heavily skewed toward the positive end of the spectrum with students viewing the impact of EL on the four components as favourable. Interviews were conducted with participants whose results showed deviations from the norm and had particularly negative experiences. Academic Development had extremely low Cronbach Alphas, which points to poor reliability. This phenomenon was also further explored during the interviews with participants making suggestions for factors to be considered. Recommendations were made to the three stakeholders of EL namely students, employers and academic coordinators in order to ensure improved Experiential Learning programmes and maximised student benefit.

Master of Science / Department of Agricultural Economics / Brian C. Briggeman / Many cooperatives are growing at an exceptional rate. Cooperative growth has been fueled by producer consolidation, a highly competitive marketplace and new opportunities through rising global demand. However, growth at an exceptional rate may be unsustainable and could potentially cause significant financial stress. Cooperatives could get so caught up in growing that they could create problems, or “grow broke.” The sustainable growth rate (SGR) is a financial metric used by many businesses to address this potential growth problem and can be used by cooperatives to ensure their long-run success. Thus, the objective of this research is to better understand the SGRs of cooperatives, provide baseline SGRs, determine key attributes of higher growth rate cooperatives and key indicators of SGR changes. The SGR relates to the retained earnings growth of a cooperative. Boosting a cooperative’s retained earnings can be done by manipulating the four levers of growth to attain higher retained earnings. These financial decisions will also boost a firm’s SGR. Increased retained earnings lends more flexibility to expand through organic growth or acquisitions. The SGR provides little information if not compared to actual growth results across time and across industry standards. Actual growth rates are measured by the year-over-year change in sales as Higgins (1977) details. By determining the difference between actual sales and the SGR, the sustainable growth challenge (SGC) is found. The SGC is a straightforward way to see how far a firm is straying from the SGR and, over time, see where the correction was made to converge to the SGR. If a business has a negative SGC, then actual growth rates exceeded SGR, which means outside financing is necessary to fund growth. If SGC is positive, then the firm is not meeting their growth target and potentially not capturing their full value for their owners. (Higgins, 1977) A seemingly unrelated regression approach is used to analyze the interrelationships of the four levers of growth using panel data from the CoBank Risk Analyst database of Midwest cooperatives’ financial and operating information. Breaking cooperatives into “large” and “small” designated groups will aids determining factors of boosted retained earnings. The cooperatives are also grouped based on regional location as well as the percentage that farm supply sales make up total sales. The drivers of SGR in today’s cooperatives will be examined—higher profit margin, or lower patronage—to determine which factors are more practical for specific cooperative size and type. In addition, the size of cooperative that faces the largest SGC and whether that sector also has a higher or lower SGR is of interest to this research. (“CoBank Risk Analyst Database,” 2017) Econometric results identify the most useful levers to boost the SGR, change the SGC or both. Profit margin is the key driver of sustainable growth; however, operating efficiency and leverage are key factors as well. When a growth challenge is present, leverage is most often used and the biggest contributor to changes in the SGC. Cooperatives of each size, location and region grow and are affected by growth challenges. This study will help cooperative directors understand the financial decision repercussions on growth and growth challenges.

Wireless networks have received considerable attention recently due to the high user demand for wireless services and the emergence of new applications. This thesis focuses on the problem of information dissemination in a class of wireless networks known as the multi-way relay channel. Physical layer network coding is considered to increase the throughput in these networks. First, an algorithm is proposed that increases the full data exchange throughput by 33% compared to traditional routing. This gain arises from providing common knowledge to users and exploiting this knowledge to restrain some users from transmitting. Second, for complex field network coding, a transmission scheme is designed that ensures the receipt of a QAM constellation at the relay. This requires precoding the user symbols to make all possible combinations distinguishable at the relay. Using this approach, the throughput of data exchange is 1/2 symbol per user per channel use. The error performance of both schemes is derived analytically for AWGN channels. / Graduate

Improving program performance through the use of multiple homogeneous processing elements, or cores, is common-place. However, these architectures increase the complexity required at the software level. Existing work is focused on optimising programs that run in isolation on these systems, but ignores the fact that, in reality, these systems run multiple parallel programs concurrently with programs competing for system resources. In order to improve performance in this shared environment, cooperative tuning of multiple, concurrently running parallel programs is required. Moreover, the set of programs running on the system – the system workload – is dynamic and rapidly changing. This makes cooperative tuning a challenge, as it must react rapidly to changes in the system workload. This thesis explores the scope for performance improvement from cooperatively tuning skeleton parallel programs, and techniques that can be used to cooperatively auto-tune parallel programs. Parallel skeletons provide a clear separation between algorithm description and implementation, and provide tuning knobs that the system can use to make high-level changes to a programs implementation. This work is in three parts: (i) how many threads should be allocated to each program running on the system, (ii) on which cores should a programs threads be executed and (iii) what values should be chosen for high-level parameters of the parallel skeletons. We demonstrate that significant performance improvements are available in each of these areas, compared to the current state-of-the-art.

Although the present study identifies several shortcomings regarding the practice of co-operative education, it pioneers the notion that the growing of talent can be enhanced through a co-operative education strategy. The study has attempted to distil the core principles of a phenomenological research design within the greater context of qualitative research. Perspectives of the research subjects are presented as thick descriptions. The literature review indicates the need for the growing of talent in South Africa, against the backdrop of international talent struggles. It points out the need for collaboration between Higher Education and enterprises in growing talent. The study distils the core properties of co-operative education, contextualised within the dysfunctionality of Higher Education in South Africa and the development of Higher Education internationally. / Dr. W.J Schurink

Magister Educationis - MEd / Eleven years into the South African democracy there are still huge challenges facing South African public schools, especially with regard to the notions of equity and redress. Increasingly historically advantaged and disadvantaged South African schools are entering into partnerships in an attempts to address the challenges facing them. This study focused on one such a partnership between two primary schools in an attempt to ascertain whether partnerships can in fact improve the situation. / South Africa

Recently, wireless network technology has grown at such a pace that scientific research has become a practical reality in a very short time span. One mobile system that features high data rates and open network architecture is 4G. Currently, the research community and industry, in the field of wireless networks, are working on possible choices for solutions in the 4G system. The researcher considers one of the most important characteristics of future 4G mobile systems the ability to guarantee reliable communications at high data rates, in addition to high efficiency in the spectrum usage. On mobile wireless communication networks, one important factor is the coverage of large geographical areas. In 4G systems, a hybrid satellite/terrestrial network is crucial to providing users with coverage wherever needed. Subscribers thus require a reliable satellite link to access their services when they are in remote locations where a terrestrial infrastructure is unavailable. The results show that good modulation and access technique are also required in order to transmit high data rates over satellite links to mobile users. The dissertation proposes the use of OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Multiple Access) for the satellite link by increasing the time diversity. This technique will allow for an increase of the data rate, as primarily required by multimedia applications, and will also optimally use the available bandwidth. In addition, this dissertation approaches the use of Cooperative Satellite Communications for hybrid satellite/terrestrial networks. By using this technique, the satellite coverage can be extended to areas where there is no direct link to the satellite. The issue of Cooperative Satellite Communications is solved through a new algorithm that forwards the received data from the fixed node to the mobile node. This algorithm is very efficient because it does not allow unnecessary transmissions and is based on signal to noise ratio (SNR) measures.

This study concentrates on the role of cooperatives in Local Economic Development (LED) and the creation of sustainable jobs. In ascertaining this role, it was imperative that the study also examine the participant’s perceptions and attitudes as the drivers in attaining the sustainable livelihoods; where their desire, their beliefs and their perceived social norms are examined. In line with the examination of the participant’s perceptions and attitudes as the drivers in attaining the sustainable livelihoods, we have also identified the drivers or catalyst to really changing the behaviour and/or performance and really taking action. Motivation of this study is that the participants and LED officials will learn from the lessons that are identified. Lessons can be learned from our history in South Africa that through dedication and sustained motivation goals can be realised. Motivation and commitment are therefore important in strengthening the foundations of cooperative development towards job creation; where social capital is the driver of commitment and motivation and should be promoted as such. Through the cooperation that is inherent in cooperatives people pull together towards realising their dreams. The sustainable jobs are however not attainable at this stage of cooperative development but strong foundations are however being built to realise these goals in the near future. Unemployment is a big problem that policy makers are looking for solutions to, and hence the development of policy measures like the Cooperative Policy to address poverty through creation of cooperatives. These cooperatives collectively benefit the members and create a platform for mutual cooperation. Self-motivation and ‘Ubuntu’ need to be ingrained more in our culture and find a ‘new meaning’. There is a role for social capital and the unity that is within ‘Ubuntu’ to really be used as the undoubted asset that it is. Social capital can be seen as the driver of commitment and motivation. This can also be seen in the Mutual Incentives Theory’ (MIT) of motivations to participate developed by Birchall and Simmons, as meaningful participation can be motivated by three variables. These variables are shared goals, shared values and sense of community. These three variables are all integrated in social capital; where social capital could be seen as the common denominator. Such conclusions about the importance of social capital in driving meaningful participation in cooperatives should be widely acknowledged. The promotion of social capital in all its forms should be wide spread and it should form part of the basis for solutions to cooperative development.