The use of a designated driver (DD) is reportedly a successful and cost effective way to reduce the number of injuries resulting from driving under the influence of alcohol. Benefits of using a DD are that it promotes the social norm of drinking abstinence, legitimizes the non-drinking role, offers a specific and modest behavior change to avoid DUI, and encourages planning ahead in drinking situations. However, DD programs have been criticized by those who feel these programs ignore the negative implications of drinking as distinct from drinking anddriving, and may actually encourage excessive drinking among passengers. Furthermore, whether the DD actually abstains from alcohol has remained an empirical question. The current study examined the blood alcohol concentration (BAC) levels of male and female designated drivers and passengers of designated drivers leaving drinking establishments in a university town. A 2 (Male vs. Female) x 2 (DD vs. Non-DD) ANOVA indicated a main effect for gender, a main effect for driver type, and a significant interaction for gender and driver type. The interaction was due to a greater reduction in BACs for female than male DDs. The mean BAC for male DDs (n = 46) was .074, and the mean BAC for male non-DDs (n = 140) was .085. In contrast, the mean BAC for female DDs (n = 20) was .022, whereas the mean BAC for female non-DDs (n = 55) was .068. On average, vehicle passengers interviewed had BAC levels above the legal limit of .08 in Virginia. A direct relationship was found between the size of the social group and the probability of the group having a DD. More specifically, 79 % of groups (n = 69) with four or more drinkers had a DD, whereas only 57 % of groups (n = 184) with three or fewer drinkers had a DD. Implications for the future development of DD programs are also discussed. / Master of Science

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has been auctioning frequency licenses since 1994. To encourage long-run competition in the telecommunication industry, the commission granted bid discounts to the small firms in its spectrum auctions. The primary focus of the dissertation is to evaluate the effect of the program on the number of licenses won by small firms, and on the FCC's auction revenues. It also examines the consequences of access manipulations by large-firm affiliates which used legal loopholes to capture over $7 billion in discounts. The first chapter presents an overview of the FCC auction system and the discount program. It sets up the rest of the analysis. The second chapter of the dissertation applies a non-parametric estimation approach to recover the auction participants' value distribution through its bounds. Auction simulations using the distribution argue that the subsidy increases the share of small firm licenses from 25.9% to 27.6% at a low cost to the commission. They also imply that subsidy access by large firms has no significant effect on FCC's revenues but reduces the program's effectiveness by more than one third. The third chapter extends the analysis by introducing a parametric model that takes advantage of the bidder as well as license characteristics heterogeneity. My findings imply that perfect implementation of the program would triple the number of small firm licenses from 357, when no subsidies are present, to 942. It would also increase auction revenue from $31.89 billion to $34.17 billion. However, the access manipulations led to an increase in small firm licenses by just 266 for a total of 623, and a drop in FCC receipts to $30.21 billion. The results of my dissertation suggest that improving the program's eligibility regulations holds benefits for both small firms and the FCC. Tightening the commission's access criteria would increase welfare.

To numerous laborer friends, pension fund is an important foundation which they rely heavily on for living after retirement. Since the start of the new pension fund system, management and manipulation of the fund becomes rather important. This article mainly focuses on the study of explicit delegation for designated management of the pension fund. It refers to relevant standards and probes to see if the management conforms to the requirement of the Constitution based on an explicit principle. Furthermore, it attempts to find out the similarities and dissimilarities between the two systems for law requirement on delegation for designated management. It also looks into the current delegation system to identify existing problems, and whether these problems such as deputy, systematic, and information opaque problems, are the causes of occurrence of unidentified problems. In addition, what is the standard of explicit delegation? What is the clear definition of contents, purpose, and scope of laws and regulations? Why information needed to be made known to the public? How delegation for designated management of the pension fund should be to correspond to the principle of explicit? What will be the consequences if principle of explicit is not corresponded with? These are the questions to be studied and discussed in this paper. This paper refers to and reviews the current operation modes of the United States, Singapore, and Hong Kong, hoping to gain experiences from these countries, and to take the experiences as a reference for Taiwan¡¦s implementation of the system. In conclusion, this paper provides a possible way of pension fund management based on the following premises: 1. establish a clear and definite achievements index system, 2. public information periodically, 3. set up mutual indemnity fund, 4. free selection and free switch, 5. issue index fund for laborers to choose.

Retention of key employees is becoming an increasingly important challenge faced by many organisations. With every employee that leaves the company, cost of recruitment and appointment, as well as training and development cost subsequent to that, are lost. The situation is aggravated by the fact that it is usually the higher performing employee who is more mobile from a career point of view, or the employee who has completed his/her training and who is more marketable, that is lost to the organisation. To effectively retain workers, employers must know which factors motivate their employees to stay on and which factors cause them to leave. The general research objective was to determine variables that influence the retention of designated employees within a platinum mine. A qualitative research design was used. Twenty four designated employees were selected randomly from the following occupations in the mining career path, namely Crew Captain in training, Crew Captain, Learner Official and Shift Supervisor. A qualitative measuring instrument, based on the phenomenological paradigm, was used to determine employees' perceptions of retention of designated employees. Content analysis was used to analyse, quantify, and interpret the research data. The results indicated that designated employees are poached by competitor companies; that designated employees leave for better payment or benefits; that they value opportunities for growth and development; that the Crew Captain title, job content and job category cause employees to be unhappy; that designated employees leave after receiving training and development; that they do not feel valued or listened to; that they are unhappy with accommodation benefits and the bonus system; that they are managed by fear; that job security makes designated employees to stay; that they leave due to poor benefits; that they are in general dissatisfied with the company; that work and safety conditions are good; that designated employees experience a lot of work pressure; that they value family responsibility; that designated employees with limited education stay; and that they experience racial discrimination. Recommendations for future research are also made. / Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2005.

Retention of key employees is becoming an increasingly important challenge faced by many organisations. With every employee that leaves the company, cost of recruitment and appointment, as well as training and development cost subsequent to that, are lost. The situation is aggravated by the fact that it is usually the higher performing employee who is more mobile from a career point of view, or the employee who has completed his/her training and who is more marketable, that is lost to the organisation. To effectively retain workers, employers must know which factors motivate their employees to stay on and which factors cause them to leave. The general research objective was to determine variables that influence the retention of designated employees within a platinum mine. A qualitative research design was used. Twenty four designated employees were selected randomly from the following occupations in the mining career path, namely Crew Captain in training, Crew Captain, Learner Official and Shift Supervisor. A qualitative measuring instrument, based on the phenomenological paradigm, was used to determine employees' perceptions of retention of designated employees. Content analysis was used to analyse, quantify, and interpret the research data. The results indicated that designated employees are poached by competitor companies; that designated employees leave for better payment or benefits; that they value opportunities for growth and development; that the Crew Captain title, job content and job category cause employees to be unhappy; that designated employees leave after receiving training and development; that they do not feel valued or listened to; that they are unhappy with accommodation benefits and the bonus system; that they are managed by fear; that job security makes designated employees to stay; that they leave due to poor benefits; that they are in general dissatisfied with the company; that work and safety conditions are good; that designated employees experience a lot of work pressure; that they value family responsibility; that designated employees with limited education stay; and that they experience racial discrimination. Recommendations for future research are also made. / Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2005.

With the development of GPS and 3G network, mobile navigation systems are widely used in people’s daily life. From 2D electronic map to 3D simulation map, the navigation services based on real-scene information is becoming the mainstream. Due to the rapid growth of mobile navigation systems, users are not satisfied with the""basic navigation services any more, such as locating places and devising paths. They put forward higher demands on location-based services (LBS for short). Thus, LBS applications based on mobile navigation systems has attracted more and more attention. This thesis studies the drawbacks and relevant technologies of LBS, then designs and implements the LBS application for mobile virtual navigation systems based on Android platform. First of all, it analyzes the current status of LBS services, and come up with a self-adapting individuation LBS proposal based on user interests. Secondly, according to the requirements of LBS functional integrity and type diversity, it designs three function modules of the LBS application, including Mobile LBS Module, Location Sharing Module and Designated Reconstruction of Real Scene Module. What’s more, Mobile  LBS Module is aimed to provide basic and extended location services to users, as well as user interest-based LBS information. Location Sharing Module puts forward a new check-in mode using physical medium, such as 2D barcodes and Bluetooth devices to share users’ current position. Designated Reconstruction of Real Scene Module is responsible for navigation route review and historical track queries, via the technology of SVG image compression and dynamic caching mechanism. Finally, the LBS application invokes Augmented Reality Module to show the location data, service results and navigation route in 3D form. The LBS application for mobile virtual navigation system based on Android platform in this thesis can provide navigation and location-based services of high quality directly and clearly, as well as bring users new experiences of mobile function. It has already achieved good results in experimental environment.

Affirmative action is a central concept in South African politics and the workplace. The Employment Equity Act divides society into a designated group (blacks, women and people with disabilities) and a non-designated group (white men and white women). In this study, the influence of affirmative action on alienation of the non-designated group was investigated. Guidelines were also developed for employers in order to lead the non-designated group from a state of alienation to that of commitment. Two research questions were investigated: • Does affirmative action lead to the alienation of the non-designated group? • What will guidelines for companies, with the view to address the alienation problem, look like? Three central themes appear in this study. Firstly the concept alienation was investigated. The theory of Seeman was heavily relied on. He succeeded in summarising the experience of alienation in five variants, namely powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness, isolation and self-alienation. Secondly, guidelines were developed in order to lead the non-designated group from a state of alienation to that of commitment. To succeed in doing this, the industrial sociology alienation theory and the industrial psychology motivation theory were linked together. The quadruplet sisters of the motivation theory, namely motivation, work satisfaction, work involvement and organisational commitment were applied as the basis for the guidelines. Thirdly, affirmative action was discussed in depth. The experience of the non-designated group regarding affirmative action was investigated, affirmative action as an international phenomenon was scrutinized, different methods for implementing affirmative action were researched and a study on statutory framework of affirmative action was also undertaken. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Industrial Sociology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

Thesis (Ph.D. (Industrial Sociology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

Affirmative action is a central concept in South African politics and the workplace. The Employment Equity Act divides society into a designated group (blacks, women and people with disabilities) and a non-designated group (white men and white women). In this study, the influence of affirmative action on alienation of the non-designated group was investigated. Guidelines were also developed for employers in order to lead the non-designated group from a state of alienation to that of commitment. Two research questions were investigated: • Does affirmative action lead to the alienation of the non-designated group? • What will guidelines for companies, with the view to address the alienation problem, look like? Three central themes appear in this study. Firstly the concept alienation was investigated. The theory of Seeman was heavily relied on. He succeeded in summarising the experience of alienation in five variants, namely powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness, isolation and self-alienation. Secondly, guidelines were developed in order to lead the non-designated group from a state of alienation to that of commitment. To succeed in doing this, the industrial sociology alienation theory and the industrial psychology motivation theory were linked together. The quadruplet sisters of the motivation theory, namely motivation, work satisfaction, work involvement and organisational commitment were applied as the basis for the guidelines. Thirdly, affirmative action was discussed in depth. The experience of the non-designated group regarding affirmative action was investigated, affirmative action as an international phenomenon was scrutinized, different methods for implementing affirmative action were researched and a study on statutory framework of affirmative action was also undertaken. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Industrial Sociology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

Easement of areas designated for overflowing of floods - Abstract The aim of this thesis is to elaborate and subsequently provide an analysis of the current legal regulation of the easement of areas designated for overflowing of floods in Czech civil law. With regard to the historical development of easements as a superior concept of the easement of areas designated for overflowing of floods, as well as with regard to the regulation of a similar institute, which is the area designated for controlled flood overflowing under the Water Act. This thesis focuses on approaching the relatively young institute of the easement of areas designated for overflowing of floods in Czech civil law, clarifying its basic essence and its use in practice. The first chapter briefly outlines the basic characteristics of easements and their subdivision. The second chapter of the thesis briefly outlines the basic characteristics of the easement of areas designated for overflowing of floods. In the third chapter, this thesis focuses on the historical development of easements from Roman law until the Civil Code of 1964, focusing on the general historical development of easements in the absence of specific regulation of the easement of areas designated for overflowing of floods in this historical development. The greatest emphasis in...