This qualitative study is focused on young adult students’ experiences and perspectives of using websites for career information and guidance, and how that may impact their horizon of action in career decisions. Collection of data were made through interviews with college students from different faculties of Umeå University. All interviews were transcribed and compiled into various themes which were analysed with the perspectives of Digital literacy, Careership theory and the Chaos theory of careers. The result emergence the importance of students approaches on web-based information and their capacity of using it in their benefit. According to the student’s digital usage, which is categorized into simple and more advanced processes, perceives that digital literacy and personal characteristics may affect their use of career websites. The study concludes that internet is one of many social fields that influence the horizon of action and that the role of career websites depends on individual approaches and attitudes to several fields. For the work of career practitioners this study contributes with an insight about possibilities and risks that may come with student’s digital usage in career purpose. Therefore, this study also shows the requiring of further research in the area of career guidance and internet.

"Public opinion finds its way into the justice system and finally to the decision making platform of the courts through various channels. These include public opinion polls, legislative debates, writings of jurists, social pressures, political situations and referendum on legal issues. Regarding the death penalty, the role of public opinion becomes more debatable because as Kakooza explains, there is a difficulty of addressing death penalty issues as values, national aspirations and conditions of social intercourse vary from society to society. The death penalty touches life, which is the most important of all human rights. It, therefore, remains debatable as to whether it is the courts or the people that may decide the legality of criminal sanctions like the death penalty. Protection of judicial independence conflicts with the need for legitimacy, given that courts are occupied by un-elected judges. While sticking to legalistic and official positions, courts must keep in touch with the public since they need the latter's approval for decisions to be respected and implemented. It is also not clear whether, and if so, to what extent, courts may rely upon public opinion in making decisions, thus the importance of assessing the role it sould play and coming out with a way forward. ... Chapter one comprises the background of the study, statement of the problem, significance of the study, aims and objectives of the study, literature review, methodology and limitations of the study. Chapter two is a discussion of the role public opinion ought to play in court decisions in general, and decisions on the legality of the death penatly in particular. Chapter three is an analysis of the actual influence of public opinion on court decisions on the legality of the death penalty. It also has a comparison of court practice in Uganda and South Africa and includes a critique. Chapter four is a presentation of arguments for and against the role of pulic opinion in court decisions. Chapter five contains conclusions from the research findings and recommendations on how public opinion should be treated in court decisions generally, and the legality of the death penalty in particular." -- Introduction. / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2006. / Prepared under the supervision of Dr. Raymond A. Atuguba at the Faculty of Law, University of Ghana, Legon / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/academic_pro/llm1/dissertations.html / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

There is worldwide concern that individuals are not saving sufficiently for retirement. Low savings rates, coupled with a lack of preservation of retirement funds when individuals move jobs, could have adverse repercussions on the ability to retire with sufficient funds. The traditional response to low preservation levels has been to impose taxes on cash withdrawals and a move is underway in South Africa to potentially mandate preservation. All these interventions assume that individuals are not acting rationally when they take a cash payout, however this assumption of irrationality has not been tested. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the factors that lead to low preservation levels in order to determine whether intervention is required to increase preservation, and if so, what form it should take. The study consisted of two phases. Phase one carried out a critical, multidisciplinary literature review to construct a conceptual model of the factors which potentially lead to low preservation levels. According to this model, these factors could arise from rational decision making in line with consumption smoothing behaviour linked to the life cycle hypothesis or irrational decision making arising from behavioural factors linked to bounded willpower or bounded rationality. The resultant model highlighted the distinct differences in the drivers of rational and irrational behaviour and therefore, the distinctly different interventions required. Phase two of the study focused on the empirical testing of the conceptual model to obtain an understanding of the relative importance of the factors. This phase made use of an analytical survey to test relationships between the predictor variables identified in the conceptual model, and the outcome variable which is whether the individual preserved funds when moving jobs. The data was analysed with logistic regression techniques. The study found that behavioural factors play an important role in explaining the preservation decisions made by individuals. In particular behavioural factors related to bounded rationality as a result of the inherent computational complexity of the decision making environment emerged as important explanatory variables. This appears to indicate that solutions should focus on decision support and guidance to assist individuals in making optimal decisions. This study makes a unique contribution to the field of retirement finance and decision making as it highlights the role that behavioural factors play in retirement preservation decisions. The implications regarding which interventions are best suited to assist in optimal decision iv making are informative for policy makers, providers of retirement products and financial advisors, as well as sponsors and members of retirement funds. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / lk2014 / Financial Management / Unrestricted

Since 2007, several studies have been conducted by international and national role players to establish whether the recent efforts to improve financial reporting have been successful. The respondents to the surveys used as part of these studies have indicated that more concise and less complex financial reports would be more understandable to users of financial reports. In view of the call for shorter and simpler financial reports, the fact that the understandability of financial reports appears to be a problem, as well as the fact that a limited amount of research on the understandability of interim financial reports has been done thus far, it was decided to investigate whether individual shareholders understand the context and content of interim financial reports which, per se, are supposed to be more concise and less complex financial reports presented by companies. The study entailed using a postal questionnaire in a survey of a sample of individual shareholders of three large South African listed retail companies to determine whether individual shareholders understand the context and content of interim financial reports, and whether they use these reports, among other sources, to make investment decisions. The study is based loosely on the high profile studies of Lee and Tweedie in respect of individual shareholders performed in the late 1970s. The primary research objective of the current study was to determine whether individual shareholders of South African listed retail companies understand the context and content of interim financial reports. It was found that understanding of these reports was generally limited. However, there is evidence that experience and training in the field of financial accounting improve shareholders’ understanding of the content of interim financial reports. Apart from questions on the demographics and investment objectives of individual shareholders, a number of other questions were also included in the questionnaire to address several secondary research objectives. The questions relating to the secondary research objectives were designed to gather information, inter alia, on how individual shareholders make investment decisions, sources of information used by individual shareholders when making investment decisions, additional information that should be included in interim financial reports, as well as the medium of communication through which individual shareholders would prefer to receive interim financial reports. The study has shown, amongst other things, that the majority of respondents to this study initiated their own investment decisions, that articles in the financial press are the most popular source of information when making investment decisions, and that individual shareholders still prefer to receive interim reports by post. / Thesis (DCom)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / gm2014 / Accounting / Unrestricted

is worldwide concern that people do not save enough towards retirement. To stimulate savings, tax incentives are a method employed by governments to encourage retirement savings. In this context, the asset allocation decisions that individuals make and the asset allocation restrictions that are imposed by regulators in an attempt to protect retirement savings, potentially impact the retirement ending wealth, which could be accumulated in the pre-retirement phase of an individual. The objective of the study was to determine the impact of tax legislation, Regulation 28 of the Pension Funds Act (24/1956) and asset allocation choices on accumulated retirement ending wealth and what could be deemed appropriate for most individuals considering different time horizons. Therefore, the aim of this study was two-fold: to determine whether pension fund legislation which limits the exposure to risky asset classes resulted in sub-optimal accumulated retirement ending wealth despite the associated tax savings; and to determine whether life cycle retirement funds, as opposed to different balanced retirement funds, were appropriate for most individuals. The study did not find support for the notion that direct investment funds dominated high equity balanced retirement funds that complied with Regulation 28 as measured by firstorder and almost stochastic dominance. Despite the higher asset allocation to equities that was possible with direct investments, this benefit was outweighed by the tax savings attributable to retirement funds. Additionally, the results of the study refuted the notion that a direct investment fund could be optimal over a long investment horizon. The implication of the finding was that an individual saving for retirement should, firstly, do so by taking full advantage of the tax savings that retirement funds offered. Hence retirement funds are an effective retirement saving tool despite the limitations on high-risk asset class allocations. The study found only limited support for the hypothesis that a theoretical retirement fund with a 100 per cent allocation to equities dominated a high equity balanced retirement fund that complied with Regulation 28 (particularly in the case of a 100 per cent local equity retirement fund compared with a Regulation 28 high equity balanced fund with no foreign equity exposure). Because the South African equity asset class was very volatile (annualised standard deviation of 19.8 per cent against 17.4 per cent for local against foreign equity in the data used in the study), a high exposure could lead to very low accumulated retirement ending wealth values; the intent of Regulation 28 was to protect the retirement savings of individuals against such adversity. Despite being perceived as very restrictive on the individual, the findings could not conclude that Regulation 28 restrictions on asset classes were inappropriate. This study provided no support for the notion that a life cycle fund dominated a balanced fund with similar starting asset allocation from the perspective of accumulated retirement ending wealth. This raised the question whether life cycle funds, which are often included as default options for members of retirement funds, have a place. Hence they were likely not the optimal choice compared with a balanced fund counterpart with similar starting asset allocation. However, they could be attuned to the preferences of the individual (such as risk and personal preferences) rather than a rational objective assessment of one fund compared with another. The study provided mixed support for whether a life cycle fund dominated a balanced fund with dissimilar starting asset allocations. This indicated that whether there was a place for a life cycle fund in any retirement fund default options, or whether it was optimal compared with an alternative balanced fund, strongly depended on the underlying asset allocations of the funds while the length of the glide path, the investment horizon as well as the risk and return characteristics of the investable universe could also influence the conclusion. The study uniquely contributed to the retirement savings question with evidence that did not support the notion that Regulation 28 of the Pension Funds Act was necessarily inappropriate to serve the purpose of protecting retirement savings. The study also showed how the lower risk attribute of life cycle strategies impacted on accumulated retirement ending wealth, how it compared with balanced funds and which choice would be appropriate for most individuals. Because the life cycle industry is a fast-growing portion of the retirement fund market and becoming more popular as default options in retirement funds, the study contributed by contrasting life cycle funds with balanced funds and showed that the choice of which fund was optimal, was driven by the different characteristics of the funds such as investment horizon, starting and ending asset allocations as well as the length of the glide path. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2015. / tm2016 / Financial Management / PhD / Unrestricted

Titel: Strategiska beslut bakom reshoring- en studie om hur strategi påverkar reshoringbeslut Författare: Simon Nilsson, Christian Persson och Gustav Andersson Handledare: Natalia Semenova Examinator: Pia Nylinder   Bakgrund och problem Svenska företag har flyttat sin produktion till låglöneländer under många år. Under de senaste åren har det däremot blivit vanligare att företag flyttar tillbaka sin produktion till Sverige igen. Problem som kan uppstå utomlands kan vara kvalitetsproblem, minskad kontroll och flexibilitet vilket bara är ett par exempel om varför företag flyttar hem. Vid strategiska beslut måste företagets strategi tas i beaktande, vilket är ett mindre utforskat område inom ämnet reshoring.  Syfte Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur strategiska beslut ser ut bakom reshoring i svenska tillverkande företag. Uppsatsen ämnar att med djupare förståelse beskriva varför produktion har flyttats hem, bakomliggande faktorer bakom besluten samt hur väl de strategiska besluten är förankrade i bolagens strategier. Metod Denna kandidatuppsats utgår ifrån en kvalitativ ansats med flerfallsstudier. Data kommer att samlas in med hjälp av semistrukturerade intervjuer samt att företagen har valts ut med ett målstyrt urval. Slutsats Företagens strategiska beslut ser i viss grad lika ut bakom reshoring men det finns även skillnader. Vissa aspekter menar företagen är viktigare än andra vid hemflytt av produktion till Sverige. Företagets strategi är starkt kopplad till de bakomliggande strategiska beslut som ligger bakom reshoring. / Title: Strategic decisions underlying reshoring- a study about how strategy affects reshoring decisions Authors: Simon Nilsson, Christian Persson and Gustav Andersson Supervisor: Natalia Semenova Examiner: Pia Nylinder Background and problem  Swedish companies have moved production to low-wage countries for many years. During the last years it has been common that companies move their production back to Sweden again. Problems can occur abroad and a few examples are quality-issues, lack of control and flexibility which are just some reasons of why companies move back home. At strategic decisions, the companies strategies have to be taken into account, which is a less investigated area within the reshoringsubject. Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate how does the strategic decisions behind reshoring in Swedish manufacturing companies look like. The thesis is intended, with a deeper understanding, to describe why production moves back, explain the underlying decisions and how the strategic decisions are established in the companies strategies.   Method This bachelor thesis emanates from a qualitative approach with a multiple-case study. The data will be collected from semi-structured interviews and also where the companies have been selected by targeted selection.   Conclusion The companies strategic decisions are, to a certain extent, similar regarding reshoring although there are some differences. Some aspects according to the companies are more important than others in the move of production to Sweden. The companies strategies are strongly connected with the underlying strategic decisions that are at hand to reshoring.

Teacher attrition, particularly in hard-to-staff urban schools, is a problem addressed by many researchers. Although this research often focuses on novice teachers, those with three or fewer years of experience, there is a growing body of literature that examines second stage teachers, those with between four and 20 years of experience. Like their novice colleagues, these second stage teachers are also at risk of leaving the profession, which can have negative consequences for students. While much of the research focuses on reasons why teachers leave the profession, there is a growing interest in understanding how teachers reach the decision to remain in the profession. Psychological theory and existing scholarship on the work lives of teachers provides one conceptual framework for exploring the topic of teacher retention. The theory of basic psychological needs explains that teachers, like employees in all other professions need to feel fulfillment of the needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness in their professional lives. This contributes to their sense of job satisfaction, or enjoyment, which then makes it more likely for them to remain in the profession. One potential way to help second stage teachers meet these needs and experience job satisfaction is through teacher leadership roles, such as mentoring. The current exploratory study used qualitative methods to interview urban second stage teacher leaders to learn how their experiences fulfill their needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness, lead to a sense of job satisfaction, and influence their decision to remain in the profession. The participants in this study all had between four and 20 years of experience and all served in a leadership role as a mentor to pre-service teachers through an urban teacher residency program. They shared details and experiences of their professional lives from their decisions to become teachers in the urban school district, through their novice stage of teaching, and into their second stage of teaching, including the decision to take on the complicated leadership role of serving as a mentor to a pre-service teacher through a yearlong residency program. The participants shared experiences which indicated fulfillment of the three basic needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. They also shared that they felt a sense of satisfaction both from their work as classroom teachers and their role as mentors. Although they experienced need fulfillment and job satisfaction, participants also shared sources of dissatisfaction, and many explained that they were contemplating leaving the profession, with some feeling that teaching is no longer a long-term career. One noteworthy finding is that participants expressed a desire for feeling like a professional, which played a large role in the career decisions they made.

Thesis advisor: Jeffrey J.P. Pontiff / My dissertation includes three chapters on the value premium. In the first chapter, I study whether seemingly innocuous decisions in the construction of the original HML portfolio (Fama and French, 1993) affect our inference on the value premium. I find that the value premium is dramatically smaller than we thought. In sample, the average estimate of the value premium is 0.09% per month smaller than the original estimate of the value premium. Out of sample, however, the difference is statistically insignificant. The results suggest that the original value premium estimate is upward biased because of a chance result in the original research decisions. In the second chapter, I propose an estimate for intangible assets and growth opportunities and examine if this estimate improves book-to-market equity as a measure of value. I find that portfolios sorted on book equity plus the estimate to market equity have lower returns than portfolios sorted on book-to-market equity. The results suggest that intangible assets and growth opportunities diminish book-to-market equity as a measure of value because investors value intangible assets and growth opportunities in an overly optimistic way. In my third chapter, I simultaneously study nine explanations of the value effect to better understand what the dominant value explanation is. I find that duration accounts for most of the value effect and that the eight other explanations account for a negligible part of it. The results suggest that duration is the dominant explanation of the value effect. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. Carroll School of Management. / Discipline: Finance.

The aim of this thesis is to describe and evaluate legislation concerning the informed consent in the Czech legal system and propose its changes de lege ferenda. The thesis also comprises many comparisons between the Czech legislation and the foreign legislation. The first five chapters of this thesis deal with sources of legislation, informed consent as such along with information of patients as a necessary prerequisite for giving of the consent, other topics are refusal of medical care by patients and the so called advance decisions. Apart from this theoretical part the thesis also includes a practical part. The aim of this practical part is to explore implementation of legislation concerning informed consent in the everyday practice of hospitals and subsequently to compare this practice with the requirements of law. This survey was carried out by means of questionnaires, which were submitted to doctors relating theirs experience with using of informed consents in their medical practice. The purpose of this practical part is also to find out the experience and opinions of recipients of medical services, i. e. the patients, concerning different issues connected with the informed consent, also by means of the questionnaire method. Last but not least the thesis mentions many problems which are...

Dans de nombreux problèmes en apprentissage supervisé, les entrées ont une structure de groupes connue et/ou clairement identifiable. Dans ce contexte, l'élaboration d'une règle de prédiction utilisant les groupes plutôt que les variables individuelles peut être plus pertinente tant au niveau des performances prédictives que de l'interprétation. L'objectif de la thèse est de développer des méthodes par arbres adaptées aux variables groupées. Nous proposons deux approches qui utilisent la structure groupée des variables pour construire des arbres de décisions. La première méthode permet de construire des arbres binaires en classification. Une coupure est définie par le choix d'un groupe et d'une combinaison linéaire des variables du dit groupe. La seconde approche, qui peut être utilisée en régression et en classification, construit un arbre non-binaire dans lequel chaque coupure est un arbre binaire. Ces deux approches construisent un arbre maximal qui est ensuite élagué. Nous proposons pour cela deux stratégies d'élagage dont une est une généralisation du minimal cost-complexity pruning. Les arbres de décision étant instables, nous introduisons une méthode de forêts aléatoires pour variables groupées. Outre l'aspect prédiction, ces méthodes peuvent aussi être utilisées pour faire de la sélection de groupes grâce à l'introduction d'indices d'importance des groupes. Ce travail est complété par une partie indépendante dans laquelle nous nous plaçons dans un cadre d'apprentissage non supervisé. Nous introduisons un nouvel algorithme de clustering. Sous des hypothèses classiques, nous obtenons des vitesses de convergence pour le risque de clustering de l'algorithme proposé. / In many problems in supervised learning, inputs have a known and/or obvious group structure. In this context, elaborating a prediction rule that takes into account the group structure can be more relevant than using an approach based only on the individual variables for both prediction accuracy and interpretation. The goal of this thesis is to develop some tree-based methods adapted to grouped variables. Here, we propose two new tree-based approaches which use the group structure to build decision trees. The first approach allows to build binary decision trees for classification problems. A split of a node is defined according to the choice of both a splitting group and a linear combination of the inputs belonging to the splitting group. The second method, which can be used for prediction problems in both regression and classification, builds a non-binary tree in which each split is a binary tree. These two approaches build a maximal tree which is next pruned. To this end, we propose two pruning strategies, one of which is a generalization of the minimal cost-complexity pruning algorithm. Since decisions trees are known to be unstable, we introduce a method of random forests that deals with groups of inputs. In addition to the prediction purpose, these new methods can be also use to perform group variable selection thanks to the introduction of some measures of group importance, This thesis work is supplemented by an independent part in which we consider the unsupervised framework. We introduce a new clustering algorithm. Under some classical regularity and sparsity assumptions, we obtain the rate of convergence of the clustering risk for the proposed alqorithm.