Thesis advisor: Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes / The productive aging paradigm emphasizes the importance of continued engagement in productive roles for maintaining health and vitality in later life. The word "engagement" is frequently used within this literature to refer to physical engagement with a role--or one's involvement in the categorical sense. However, psychological engagement--or one's subjective experience of a role as positive, meaningful, invigorating, and inspiring--is less frequently discussed. While there is a well-developed body of knowledge on the antecedents and consequences of psychological engagement with paid work, little is known about the role of age or age-related factors in these relationships. This dissertation begins to fill this gap in the knowledge base by drawing upon important insights from the business management and industrial/organizational psychology literature to understand factors that may contribute to and/or detract from older adults' ability to psychologically engage in work roles and whether these relationships vary for older adults (age 50 or older, n = 543) compared to midlife (age 35 to 49, n = 653) or younger adults (under age 35, n = 664). Results of multi-level regression analyses suggest that personal resources (i.e., core self-evaluations) and job resources (i.e., task variety, autonomy, friendship, task identity, task significance, supervisor support, job security, inclusion in decision-making, opportunities for learning and development, and team culture of flexibility) were main predictors of engagement for older adults as well as midlife and younger adults. Interestingly, the strength and nature of several of the job resource-engagement relationships were dependent upon job demands and/or core self-evaluations for older adults; however, in general, this was not the case for younger or midlife adults. Age differences remained even after controlling for several factors that could account for age-based differences in predictors of engagement (e.g., tenure). These findings provide a fuller understanding of the conditions that promote or impede psychological engagement with work in later life and will help policymakers and practitioners to better recognize and advocate for work contexts that maximize well-being for older adults. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Social Work. / Discipline: Social Work.

Neste trabalho, a contabilidade reveste-se de historicidade e insere-se no contexto da Economia Solidária (ES) como um fundamental instrumento de democracia e cidadania. Tendo como foco de estudo a relação entre Contabilidade e Autogestão (modelo de gestão da ES), o objetivo foi compreender e analisar a dimensão contábil nos processos de autogestão dos empreendimentos solidários, levantando desafios e demandas contábeis suscitadas nesse processo. Para tanto, foram criadas seis variáveis de análise que representaram aspectos da dimensão contábil, as quais são: 1) Forma de comunicação; 2) Conteúdo da informação; 3) Utilidade da informação; 4) Apropriação da informação; 5) Relação contador-usuário; 6) Legislação contábil. Os resultados obtidos, por meio do estudo de caso realizado em um empreendimento de ES, estão alinhados com estudos anteriores sobre o tema. As conclusões mais relevantes apontaram para confirmação das demandas e acrescentaram novas, dentre as quais destacam-se: a mudança da linguagem dos relatórios; criação de novos instrumentos contábeis apropriados à ES; novo perfil do profissional da área contábil; uma didática de formação em contabilidade adequada à realidade social dos trabalhadores; uma nova formação do contador baseada na realidade brasileira e preocupada com as questões sociais; e uma nova legislação contábil.Por outro lado, esta pesquisa indicou caminhos ou elementos à superação do hiato existente entre a realidade e necessidades destes usuários e as tradicionais posturas profissionais e instrumentos contábeis disponíveis à autogestão. Portanto, este trabalho contribui para a ampliação do campo de conhecimento sobre a relação contabilidade e autogestão, bem como para a reafirmação da contabilidade enquanto instrumento indispensável ao desenvolvimento econômico dos empreendimentos da ES e ao desenvolvimento de relações mais democráticas e solidárias. Entretanto, há necessidade de novas pesquisas para o aprofundamento das questões aqui levantadas e para desvelamento de outras faces do fenômeno. / In this work, accounting takes on historicity and places itself in the context of Solidary Economy (SE) as a basic instrument of democracy and citizenship. Focusing on the relationship between Accounting and Self management (the model of management of SE’s), the objective of the study was to understand and to analyze the reach of accounting in the processes of self management of the solidary enterprises, raising challenges and possible accounting demands within this process. For this purpose, six variables of analysis were created and they represent aspects of the accounting dimension. They are: 1) Form of communication; 2) Content of the information; 3) Usefulness of the information; 4) Appropriateness of the information; 5) Accountant-user relationship; 6) Accounting legislation. The results reached by means of a case study carried out in an SE enterprise, line up with previous studies on the subject. The most relevant conclusions point to a substantiation of the demands and add some new ones, among which we can highlight: the change in the type of language used in the reports; the creation of new and appropriate accounting tools to be used with SE’s; new profile of the professional of the accounting area; a didactics of education in accounting adequate to the social reality of the workers; new education for the accountant professional based on the Brazilian reality and concerned with the social matters, and new accounting legislation. On the other hand, this research showed ways or elements to overcome the existing gap between the reality and the necessities of these users and the traditional professional positions and accounting instruments available to selfmanagement. Therefore, this work contributes to the broadening of the field of knowledge on the relationship between accounting and self management, as well as to the reaffirmation of accounting as an instrument essential to the economic development of SE enterprises, and to the development of more democratic and solidary relationships. However, more research needs to be carried out for the deepening of the answers to questions raised here and for the unveiling of other aspects of the phenomenon.

The purpose of this study was to provide a better understanding of the goalkeeper position in order to prepare goalkeepers for competition. The objectives of this study were to characterize the technical and physical demands of an NCAA Division I collegiate goalkeeper over three seasons and examine trends from season to season. Count and frequency for each definition were analyzed. Results show that although the goalkeeper’s technical demands were characterized by engaging in play without action and being in the goal area, the gradually increased use of the feet over three season’s hints on the importance of skills performed with the lower body. Findings suggest that most shots faced by the goalkeeper were from direct attacks, outside the box and from central positions. Foot skills may be relied on with increasing experience. Over the course of three seasons, forward and lateral movements were the most common and second most common.

Reward has been shown to improve multiple forms of learning. However, many of these studies do not distinguish whether reward directly benefits learning or if learning is boosted by modulation of top-down factors such as attention and motivation. The work outlined in this dissertation explores the modulatory effects of reward and punishment without directly manipulating top-down factors such as attention or motivation. We achieved this goal by studying the effects of reward and punishment on incidental learning – a branch of procedural learning where learning occurs without intention and through repetition. Our results reveal that reward is able to bolster incidental learning during the performance and learning of an associative task, even when awareness of how to achieve the reward is minimized (Experiments 1 and 2). However, a similar benefit was not observed in an analogous set of experiments examining the effect of punishment on incidental learning (Experiments 3 and 4). A direct comparison between the effect of reward and punishment on incidental learning revealed a significant advantage for rewarded combinations over punishment. However, this advantage was only observed when high cognitive (associative) demands were emphasized (Experiment 6), as opposed to high motor demands (Experiment 5). Finally, we explored the role of dopamine in the effect of reward on incidental learning. Because dopamine neuron dynamics have been implicated in both reward processing and in various forms of learning, we hypothesized that patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), who experience an accelerated rate of death of dopamine neurons, would experience impaired learning from rewards compared to healthy older adults. Experiment 7 revealed a significant impairment in reward-related incidental learning for patients with Parkinson's disease relative to comparisons. The amount of levodopa medication taken by PD patients predicted the effect of reward, demonstrating a potential link between dopamine levels and the effect of reward on incidental learning. Together, this dissertation demonstrates that 1) reward improves incidental learning, 2) reward may be an exceptional form of feedback, as opposed to punishments, and 3) dopamine levels may potentially drive the effect of reward on incidental learning

<p><p>When speaking about service encounters, one most often speaks about encounters in the private sector and about customers. This study explores the public sector and the service encounter between street-level bureaucrats and clients as opposed to the encounter between salesmen and customers. The focus lies on the conflicting demands that the bureaucrat is experiencing and how she handles the emotional labour that this conflict brings. The conflicting demands have been identified as commercial, bureaucratic and social, all of which are put into the context of the opposing demands of client and organisation.</p></p>

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<p>The study aimed to examine how motherhood is constructed by married working mothers and the impact thereof on their working lives. This qualitative study explored the individual experiences of 7 working married mothers with preschool aged children who reside in the Western Cape, South Africa. Individual semi-structured interviews were&nbsp / onducted and analysed using thematic analysis. The study was situated within a social constructionist theoretical framework which holds that it is through our interactions with others that we create, maintain and verify our ideas and perceptions of the world. The literature revealed that despite the advances made by women in society, the notion that women are still the primary nurturers and care-givers is still in existence. This view is largely dictated by the social and cultural expectations in society and further perpetuated by images portrayed in the media. The results of this study revealed that the social and cultural context of the participants holds a view of motherhood that is gendered, comprises ideals of a caring, nurturing and ever-giving mother and links motherhood to womanhood and the female identity.</p>

No description available.

When speaking about service encounters, one most often speaks about encounters in the private sector and about customers. This study explores the public sector and the service encounter between street-level bureaucrats and clients as opposed to the encounter between salesmen and customers. The focus lies on the conflicting demands that the bureaucrat is experiencing and how she handles the emotional labour that this conflict brings. The conflicting demands have been identified as commercial, bureaucratic and social, all of which are put into the context of the opposing demands of client and organisation.

The ability to navigate with limited vision is a skill that is often employed in our daily lives. Navigating without vision to a remembered target has previously been studied. However, not much is known about the attention required to perform blind navigation. We examined the effect of aging and presence of obstacles on the attentional demands of blind navigation. We evaluated reaction time, navigation errors and average walking speed in an 8 meter walking path, with or without obstacles, in the absence of vision. Results showed that older participants had increased reaction time and increased linear distance travelled as opposed to young participants, that obstacles increased reaction time and decreased average walking speed in all participants, and that emitting the reaction time stimulus early in the trial increased the linear distance travelled. Interpretation of the results suggests that aging and presence of obstacles augments the attentional demands of blind navigation.