Although conversations in television shows are supposed to mimic and represent everyday natural speech, they are written for a specific purpose. The aim of this paper is to find out what maxims are flouted the most in the television series Firefly and analyse what the effects of these flouts are. Presented here is an analysis of how scripted conversation in the aforementioned television show is constructed. By applying Grice's cooperative principle and his theories on flouting and implicatures, certain patterns emerge that show recurring uses of flouts for specific effects. The results are based on a study of three episodes of the television series Firefly. The results show that the maxim of quality is flouted the most and that the distribution of flouts between characters is somewhat uneven. This suggests that the use of flouts has to do with the personalities of the different characters.

In order to enhance the inherent potential of cooperatives to support society’s move towards global socio-ecological sustainability, they need to plan strategically. Strategic planning with this goal in mind requires organisations to describe and identify steps towards a desired future. The research team set out to provide practical and context-appropriate guidance to cooperatives, describing opportunities to use strategic planning in the starting-up phase in support of their long-term success. The team deployed a qualitative and iterative approach based on grounded theory and conducted a total of twenty-four interviews with cooperative practitioners and experts as well as strategic planning experts.  The outcome of the interviews are thematic areas recommended to cover in the starting-up phase of a cooperative. The thematic areas are presented in an ABCD Strategic Planning process which aims to build a shared mental model among all stakeholders, using a participatory approach. The process may be useful for newcomers to the cooperative world; future research in support of cooperatives may want to implement the above mentioned strategic planning process while capturing lessons for its improvement.

In this thesis new techniques are presented to achieve performance enhancement in wireless cooperative networks. In particular, techniques to improve transmission rate and maximise end-to-end signal-to-noise ratio are described. An offset transmission scheme with full interference cancellation for a wireless cooperative network with frequency flat links and four relays is introduced. This method can asymptotically, as the size of the symbol block increases, achieve maximum transmission rate together with full cooperative diversity provided the destination node has multiple antennas. A novel full inter-relay interference cancellation method that also achieves asymptotically maximum rate and full cooperative diversity is then designed for which the destination node only requires a single antenna. Two- and four-relay selection schemes for wireless cooperative amplify and forward type networks are then studied in order to overcome the degradation of end-to-end bit error rate performance in single-relay selection networks when there are feedback errors in the relay to destination node links. Outage probability analysis for a four-relay selection scheme without interference is undertaken. Outage probability analysis of a full rate distributed transmission scheme with inter-relay interference is also studied for best single- and two-relay selection networks. The advantage of multi-relay selection when no interference occurs and when adjacent cell interference is present at the relay nodes is then shown theoretically. Simulation results for outage probability analysis are included which support the theoretical expressions. Finally, outage probability analysis of a cognitive amplify and forward type relay network with cooperation between certain secondary users, chosen by best single-, two- and four-relay selection is presented. The cognitive amplify and forward relays are assumed to exploit an underlay approach, which requires adherence to an interference constraint on the primary user. The relay selection scheme is performed either with a max-min strategy or one based on maximising exact end-to-end signal-to-noise ratio. The outage probability analyses are again confirmed by numerical evaluations.

Thesis (MDF)--Stellenbosch University, 2012. / Union Régionale des Coopèratives d’Epargne et de Crédit (URCOOPEC) is a network of 10 savings and credit cooperatives, established in 1990 by UNDP in Chad to support the government’s strategy of strengthening and improving access to financial services to the population. All the cooperatives are located in and around N’djaména the capital city of Chad. URCOOPEC has developed as a microfinance model owned by the community that is able to help the poor population that is excluded from the formal financial services accessing these services. Despite its potential of reaching people even in remote areas, literature about previous studies in other countries has indicated that sustainability of savings and credit cooperatives is hampered by the issues in corporate governance, management, skills, product development amongst others. This study examines the viability of this model in the context of Chad; particularly it examines the conditions for which this model can better contribute to financial sector development in Chad. The findings reveal that the model was helpful and accepted by many users at its earlier stage. However, weaknesses in corporate governance, credit management and shortage of skills have led this URCOOPEC into difficulties. There is a need for training of technical staff and for the board to develop more products, sensitize the members about their rights and duties. URCOOPEC also needs financial support from government and donors as well as linkage with commercial banks to better contribute to the provision of financial services to the population.

West Coast fruit cooperatives working together in joint-venture trading companies may well lower the prices of their fruit for export through economies of scale. However, present and future foreign demand for American fruit may constrain any economies of scale that are realized in joint-venture agreements. The major objective of this thesis is to analyze the import demand for fresh American oranges, apples, and grapes of one important buying area, Hong Kong. Two theoretical constructs are used to model the import demand for American oranges, apples, and grapes in Hong Kong. One relies on more traditional assumptions of product homogeneity. The other utilizes the Strotzian utility tree. The resulting models are estimated using Ordinary Least Squares. Four conclusions may be drawn from the estimated models. First, Hong Kong consumers have very elastic responses to changes in the prices of American oranges, apples, and grapes relative to the prices of oranges, apples, and grapes from other sources. Second, this result is especially true when below average demand conditions prevail. Hence, lower prices realized through joint-venture trading companies increase the competitiveness of American fruit at these weaker times. Third, the per capita quantity demanded of American oranges, apples, and grapes will increase as the incomes of Hong Kong's inhabitants rise. Fourth, the statistical problems encountered in the larger models preclude any definite conclusions regarding the price effects of other fruit on the demand for American oranges, apples, and grapes or the price effects which the American fruit may have on each other. / Graduation date: 1986

This dissertation is available for free download through the University of Arizona library and the author's web site.Since Argentina's economic collapse of 2001, workers who occupied abandoned and bankrupt businesses and put them back into operation as cooperatives have attracted increasing attention on the part of academic researchers and other disaffected workers. This dissertation reviews the political economic contexts in which these "recovered businesses" were established, reviews the dynamics of social movements involved, and considers the Argentine recovered business phenomenon from three analytical perspectives: 1) Marxist poltical economy; 2) Neo-institutional analysis (drawing on the work of Ostrom); and 3) Sociospatial subjectivity (with particular reference to Butler, Lefebvre, and Bourdieu). The author, through these analyses, proposes a theory of the "industrial commons" and considers the potential for expansion and contraction of recovered business movements as their protagonists struggle to resist reterritorialization by forces associated with the state and the capitalist marketplace. Observations made by the author are supplemented by numerous quotations drawn from interviews conducted with Argentine recovered business workers in 2008.Key conclusions include the recognition that social and spatial changes have accompanied the expropriation of private workplaces and their conversion to cooperatives, that these changes may create contexts for the reproduction of cooperative values, and that the new political economic subjects produced through these processes may help to secure the long term viability and growth of not only recovered businesses, but a newly emerging "self-managed workers" movement, as well.

With the fast development of today’s multimedia services, engineers face a huge hurdle that is, the overwhelming need of highly reliable communication over long distances. Cooperative communication is a novel concept which tackles this problem effectively. The direct link is assisted by nodes called relays, which also reduce shadowing and pathloss effects in wireless networks. An added advantage of such a cooperative communication network is that when combined with multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna systems and cognitive radio networks (CRN), the system performance in terms of spectral efficiency and reliability, can be extremely enhanced without any extra power and spectrum.The concept of cooperative communications in MIMO and CRN systems has gained immense interest in the literature. Most of the research works have assumed Rayleigh fading conditions. In this thesis, the performance of cooperative communications with practical constraints of shadowing is studied. Analytical expressions for the outage probability of cooperative networks under different relaying protocols with selection combining are presented under the assumption of κ − µ shadowing fading. Specifically, the relaying protocols that are investigated are incremental relaying, opportunistic relaying, adaptive amplify-and-forward and decode-and-forward. Furthermore, this system model is simulated and the simulation results are compared with the analytical results. Mathematica, a technical computing tool, is used for numerical estimations using stochastic processes and probability theory. Simulation is done in MATLAB.In this thesis, along with the analytical framework for evaluating outage probability for the system is presented. Simulations are performed for various fading parameters and the results closely match with analytical results which validate the derivations.

Children, Youth and Families at Risk (CYFAR) is a national program developed by Cooperative Extension’s federal partner, Cooperative State, Research, Education and Extension Service (CSREES). In collaboration with its federal partner and in concert with state extension systems across the nation, UVM Extension conducted an organizational change survey in 1998, 2000, and 2004 with a selected sample of UVM Extension professionals to determine the organization’s capacity to address issues of CYFAR. Findings from these three surveys showed that Extension had not substantively altered its organizational practices in alignment with the goals of the national program. In order to stimulate new strategic planning for the program, this study set about to assess the capacity of staff from UVM Extension to promote organizational learning. Grounded in the literature of organizational learning, this study administered a 43 item survey instrument called the Dimension of the Learning Organization Questionnaire (DLOQ) to Extension employees. As a strategic planning tool, the survey identifies organizational learning opportunities at the individual, team, and organizational level. Following the Total Design Method, the web-based survey was launched September 2006, with a response rate of 68% (n=63). Findings from the new survey continue to indicate limited organizational capacity to meet national goals for CYFAR program. Interestingly, nearly 70% of survey respondents reported participation in programming for children, youth and families at risk, a percentage greater than those formally assigned to CYFAR activities. Regardless of formal assignment, however, CYFAR employees and non-CYFAR employees did not significantly differ in their survey responses across a variety of organizational measures. Prior training to develop organizational capacity in line with national goals appears to be falling short of expectations. Implications for these shortcomings are discussed and used to frame an action plan for development of this program.

This diploma thesis deals with cooperatives and closely focuses on their bodies. Czech legal order gives only superficial legislation which causes many questions and imperfections to arise. The aim of this thesis is to find solutions to these problems and create an ideal model of cooperative. Following that, the author bases his thoughts on the legal doctrine and Czech court jurisdiction. The introductory part focuses on general questions, i.e. history of cooperatives, legislation and legal characteristics of cooperatives. The author refers to the negative impact of the Communistic Party of Czechoslovakia on cooperativeness between years 1948 - 1989. Such impacts are still present in nowadays legislation. Another imperfections are seen in the starkness and fragmentation of the legislation itself. All these imperfections may be removed by the future law about business cooperatives. The main body of the thesis follows as this describes the cooperative body legislation. Current legislation brings three obligatory bodies - assembly, board and control committee. Next to these, every cooperative may establish optional bodies. The chapter on assembly deals with its status and scope. In connection with assembly's scope the author describes in detail the process of assembly's decisions approving, together...

1 Abstract The cooperative as a business entity The goal of this thesis is to look at the cooperatives from a different point of view as a business entity. The difference is explained on a fact that normally the cooperative is connected with ensuring of economic, social and other needs of its members. Chapter One deals with the basic features of a cooperative. With regard to the limited range of this thesis it considers only chosen features influencing the functioning of the cooperative as a business entity. Firstly a cooperative, entrepreneurship as a core of the market economy and the correlation between them is described. Then the thesis compares a cooperative with companies based on selected features. Chapter Two concentrates on types of cooperatives, on their constitution and utilization for business. This chapter focuses on housing cooperatives, consumer cooperatives, production cooperatives and credit unions. Last but not least the thesis comments the importance of alliances increasing competitiveness and advantages for the cooperative members. Chapter Three provides an outline of the European Cooperative Society. It is a necessary part with regard to the membership of Czech Republic in the European Union. The most important and most interesting parts related to the business utilization of the...