The dissertation aims to examine the implementation of state policies intended to promote and protect women’s rights in the first seven years of the People’s Republic of China, selecting Shanghai as a case study. Using policy implementation theory (Van Meter and Van Horn 1975; Hasenfeld and Brock 1991; Hill and Hupe 2002, 2014), the research proposes a conceptual framework to guide the analysis of implementation process in 1950s Shanghai. The framework explores four domains: policy objectives, implementing organisations, policy output and policy outcome.Three state policies towards women are examined: the Marriage Law (1950), the abolition of prostitution, and state policies towards female workers. Research findings show that the implementation of state policy towards women in the PRC (1949-1956) has been primarily influenced by the underlying state-centred principles in setting policy objectives, the level of autonomy of the local government in making local adaptive policies, and the role of the Shanghai Democratic Women’s Federation in promoting actions at grassroots level.First, the objectives of these three policies reflect the underlying state-centred principles of the central policy makers who located women’s emancipation in the process of socialist state building. Indeed, the Marriage Law (1950) did not only aim to transform traditional marriage system and establish a “democratic and harmonious” family promoting women’s status, but also to consolidate social control through marriage registration and premarital physical examination. The prohibition of prostitution ambitioned to save the “victims” of the Old society, but also to establish a new socialist social order by the accommodation and re-education of prostitutes. As for the protection regulations for female workers, the goals have changed from a mere emphasis on protecting women’s special interests to the combination of reducing women’s “special difficulty” at work, raising women’s enthusiasm for participating into the socialist construction and improving their work efficiency. As we see, the state policies towards women were not only part of the practice of women’s emancipation, but also of the broader program of social transformation and state construction. Under the broad intentions, the execution of state policies towards women would be inevitably re-oriented to serve state development.Second, when local authorities enjoyed a certain level of autonomy in formulating concrete measures based on the central policies and the local conditions, state policies towards women could be put into practice. The Marriage Law (1950) was poorly implemented until local regulations on marriage registration and premarital physical examination were allowed to be issued by the Shanghai municipal government. Prostitution were officially eradicated by the November 1951, when the local government drafted detailed plans and provided budgets and resources. As the central authorities granted local labour authorities the flexibility to formulate protection measures towards female workers, protection provisions towards pregnant and breastfeeding female workers were experimentally organised by the Shanghai Federation of Trade Unions and the Shanghai Democratic Women’s Federation.Third, the role of the Shanghai Democratic Women’s Federation has changed over the period under study. During the early periods of the PRC, the Shanghai Democratic Women’s Federation was involved in the closed government policy making. Cadres of the Women’s Federation did not only help draft local regulations on marriage registration and premarital physical examination but also played a key role in their implementation. Later, while the centralised governmental system was established, the Shanghai Democratic Women’sFederation had more impact on the implementation stage rather than on policy making as such. That is, the role of the Women’s Federation was restricted to assisting the local authorities in the implementation of central policies.In sum, based on archival documents, the research offers a better understanding of how state policies were actually deployed at the local level. Through the empirical policy implementation analysis in Shanghai, the framework applied in this dissertation provides reliable guidance to identify the factors that influenced the implementation of state policies related to gender issues in the 1950s China. It demonstrates that the Women’s Federation did influence the implementation process of state policies towards women at the local level and explains why and how this women’s intervention was weakened during the first seven years of the PRC. / Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

The present study evaluated the effectiveness of a teacher-implemented behavioral skills training (BST) procedure for teaching preschool students to exhibit an appropriate safety response in the presence of chemical bottles. Students’ safety responses were evaluated during baseline and teacher lessons (before and after BST) for each classroom. Prior to training, teachers were prompted to give a lesson including three safety steps (don’t touch, walk away, tell a teacher). No additional instructions were provided. Next, teachers received training from a researcher on how to implement BST in a classroom setting. Results indicated that the training procedure utilized was effective for increasing the number of BST components used by teachers. Further, teacher-implemented BST resulted in increases in preschool children’s appropriate responses to chemical bottles for two classrooms; however, the increase for one of the two classrooms was only moderate, and no increase was observed for children in a third classroom. Therefore, in-situ feedback was required for these two classrooms. In addition, the procedures resulted in generalized responding to a novel set of chemical bottles, as well as, a novel category of dangerous item (medicine bottles).

"Securing data transmission has always been a challenge. While many cryptographic algorithms are available to solve the problem, many applications have tough area constraints while requiring high-level security. Lightweight cryptography aims at achieving high-level security with the benefit of being low cost. Since the late nineties and with the discovery of side channel attacks the approach towards cryptography has changed quite significantly. An attacker who can get close to a device can extract sensitive data by monitoring side channels such as power consumption, sound, or electromagnetic emanation. This means that embedded implementations of cryptographic schemes require protection against such attacks to achieve the desired level of security. In this work we combine a low-cost embedded cipher, Simon, with a stateof-the-art side channel countermeasure called Threshold Implementation (TI). We show that TI is a great match for lightweight cryptographic ciphers, especially for hardware implementation. Our implementation is the smallest TI of a block-cipher on an FPGA. This implementation utilizes 96 slices of a low-cost Spartan-3 FPGA and 55 slices a modern Kintex-7 FPGA. Moreover, we present a higher order TI which is resistant against second order attacks. This implementation utilizes 163 slices of a Spartan-3 FPGA and 95 slices of a Kintex-7 FPGA. We also present a state of the art leakage analysis and, by applying it to the designs, show that the implementations achieve the expected security. The implementations even feature a significant robustness to higher order attacks, where several million observations are needed to detect leakage."

Repetitive project failures or underperformance and ever increasing competition have given impetus for the need to drastically improve project performance within professional services organisations. This realisation has prompted actions to drive restitution efforts to enhance successful delivery and overall project management throughout the organisation. However, the desired outcomes to improve project management processes at an organisational level have not always been forthcoming in light of improvement activities implemented through various changes in operating procedures. The purpose of study is to investigate and identify, from an intra-organisational perspective, the factors required to bring about enhanced implementation and continuous improvements in project management processes; and to determine how they must be aligned to a successful strategy implementation for attainment of higher states of organisational project management maturity. The study focuses on project intensive organisations, mainly implementing information communication technology (ICT), business services and financial related projects. Through the use of a literature review, augmented by a quantitative survey, the perceived impacts and values of the determined factors on project management maturity were gathered. The research study shows that companies wanting to improve project management maturity must steer away from focussing only on certain processes, but must take a holistic view, encompassing a variety of internal factors, ranging from components of organisational learning, to change management and strategy implementation. The identified factors will provide impetus for organizations to create and leverage the drivers, fostering a climate for continuous project performance improvements and ultimately giving them the ability for moving to higher levels of maturity. / Graduate School for Business Leadership / (M.B.A.)

The aim of this research is to explore the relationship between culture and climate as well as the significance of an organisation’s climate on cross-functional behaviour, activities and actions (who, what and when) which forms an integral part of strategy implementation and increasing performance. A key component of an organisational development is team work; which facilitates organisational learning, establish common goals and provide support to achieve these goals. Within the Organisation under investigation there has not been any research into the subject of the significance of the climate on cross-functional behaviour and activities, which is impacted by ‘coopetition’ - the simultaneous role of cooperation and competition within organisations. The research by means of qualitative research should provide some insight into the significance of and if climate impact cross-functional behaviour and activities in organisations. The research methodology included a customised survey which was developed to elicit answers to determine the climate and cross-functional behaviour and activities within the Organisation. Interviews were conducted with Operating Unit Executive Directors of the Organisation. The results indicate that the perceived current climate of the Organisation is not positive and that there is still silo-behaviour within the Organisation which is as a result of the culture of the Organisation, a culture which existed prior to Beyond 60 process. The research confirmed the overlapping relationship between culture and climate and that climate indeed impact cross-functional behaviour and activities at the Organisational and Operating Unit level. / Graduate School for Business Leadership / (M.B.A.)

Background: Care of premature infants is challenging for health care professionals. When the preterm infant is separated from its mother the parent-child interaction is impeded. In the last few decades, there has been increasing interest in the effectiveness of massage as an intervention to counter the negative physiological, clinical and behavioral consequences of prematurity and the neonatal intensive care unit environment. Aims: To establish the effectiveness of moderate pressure massage from evidence in the literature and to then explore the cultural, organisational and contextual factors that may act as facilitators and/or barriers for its future implementation in Lebanon. Methods: This thesis utilizes a two-step approach. Two literature reviews were undertaken to establish recent evidence on moderate pressure massage. A qualitative exploratory investigation was adopted as no articles were found that elucidated the contextual barriers and facilitators for massage implementation in the neonatal intensive care unit. The normalization process theory was used as a sensitizing framework to understand implementation issues and address the observed difficulties in implementing new interventions in clinical settings. This study was also concerned with context and culture as moderate pressure massage is not practiced in the Lebanese neonatal intensive care units. A purposive sample of Lebanese health care professionals and parents were recruited from three university hospitals with data generated through focus group discussions and observational notes. Framework analysis was used for the analysis and interpretation of the findings. The study drew on the principles and practice of ethnographic approaches. Findings: The findings from the two literature reviews only revealed randomized control trials that observed mostly the short-term physiological and psychological effects of moderate pressure massage. There were no studies that examined the organizational and contextual issues that need to be understood before any trial could be designed in the neonatal intensive care unit setting. The evidence from this review suggested there is a need to explore the views of health care professionals and parents on the practice of massage in the neonatal intensive care units to provide insight into the subsequent design of an intervention study that would be culturally sensitive, appropriate, and acceptable in practice. The findings from the qualitative study then revealed that despite the participants’ interest in implementing massage intervention, parents’ participation in the neonatal intensive care unit is almost absent except for breastfeeding. Participants in both groups, parents and health care professionals, highlighted the parents’ fear and anxiety. In general, nurses are in charge and parents are passive observers. Transportation difficulties, unavailability of helpful staff, and fear were reported as major barriers to parent-implemented infant moderate pressure massage; health care professionals highlighted staff attitude and resistance, workload and time constraints. Communication, gradual implementation, encouragement and support were identified by parents as potential facilitators. In comparison, having extra staff and a protocol for teaching nurses, training parents and openness to innovation were the main potential facilitators of implementation identified by health care professionals. Conclusion: This study helped to reveal the potential challenges of applying such a complex intervention as moderate pressure massage by the parents in the neonatal intensive care unit. Adopting infant massage in the Lebanese neonatal intensive care unit without preparation of health care professionals and parents would be premature. Good communication between parents and health care providers is a key element to facilitate early bonding and parent-infant interaction. Missing the opportunity to involve parents in neonatal intensive care unit care puts the family in a difficult situation to adapt to the new challenges after discharge. The findings of this study will advance current knowledge in understanding the factors that determine applicability, acceptability and feasibility of massage implementation in the neonatal intensive care unit setting. It will also assist and inform the design of future randomized control trials. The noramalization process theory was a valuable lens to guide the process of inquiry and to make sense of the emergent findings from this exploratory qualitative study.

Although several sustainability implementation frameworks have been proposed, researchers have not yet proposed theories or models to help organisations speed up the rate of sustainability diffusion and narrow the gap between what is known and what is put into use. This study sought to fill this gap by proposing a sustainability diffusion model. The model was developed from an exhaustive review of the corresponding literature. It uses Rogers' (1962) diffusion of innovations theory and Ajzen's (1991) theory of planned behaviour as a theoretical foundation. The model was tested and its structural architecture was validated in three different sustainability contexts; namely, duplex printing in UK universities; sustainable computing in service-based businesses; and sustainability culture in UK universities. The primary data was analysed statistically using SPSS, and structural equation modelling (SEM) in particular was used to validate the structural architecture of the proposed model. The SEM results indicate that the structural architecture of the theory of planned behaviour is well-founded. All the hypotheses that underline the theory's paths were supported. In contrast, the structural architecture of the diffusion of innovations theory was weakly supported. Some of the paths were rejected in at least two occasions. For example, the relationship between pro-sustainability knowledge and attitude was neither statistically significant nor directional. Moreover, several components of the 'verified' model turned out to be statistically insignificant or were rejected altogether. These were knowledge, perceived self interest, perceived persuader legitimacy, perceived consequences, perceived argument quality, trialability and perceived source credibility. Accordingly, once these constructs were removed and the model was restructured in accordance with the results of SEM analysis, an entirely new version of the 'sustainability diffusion model' emerged (See Figure IX-2). The architecture of the new model suggests that in order to speed up the rate of sustainability diffusion, change agents must emphasise the relative advantage, compatibility, subjective norm and the urgency of the pro-sustainability initiative under implementation and de-emphasise any complexities or risks associated with its operationalisation. Unexpectedly, the new version of the proposed model relies more on Ajzen's (1991) theory of planned behaviour as a theoretical foundation than on Rogers' (1983) innovation-decision process model. In other words, the new model maintained almost all the features of the theory of planned behaviour, but it only absorbed some, but not all, of the components of Rogers' innovation-decision process model. Nevertheless, the new model maintained its holistic nature. It still takes into account both the person-specific and innovation-specific factors that influence the diffusion, adoption and actualisation of pro-sustainability behaviours/initiatives.

This study focuses on the factors which explain Abu Dhabi Education Council’s (Adec) English curriculum choice in grade ten and eleven public high schools in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). It investigates the challenges its implementation poses for teachers personally and professionally. The study is exploratory and interpretive and is based on the perceptions of 12 male teachers; 6 Arab teachers of English and 6 “native” English speaking teachers at 3 boys’ public high schools in the Abu Dhabi emirate. Data were gathered through lengthy semi-structured interviews with teachers, analysis of Adec curriculum and assessment documentation as well as open, non-participant classroom observations. The findings show the current curriculum, modelled on that used in NSW mainstream schools in Australia up until the end of 2014 is an inappropriate choice for students learning English as a foreign/second language in a school environment where all other subjects are taught in Arabic. This in turn provides a range of challenges for teachers who are unable to implement the course content as it was intended or the learner / learning-centred pedagogical approaches promoted by the curriculum and assessment documentation. The study recommends a realistic assessment of students’ language needs be undertaken as a top priority and, based on these findings, English classes streamed according to students’ language proficiency; with curriculum and assessment designed to reflect the various stages of learning. Ability grouping would enable specialist teachers to target areas of strength and weakness, thus countering the boredom and frustration currently experienced by many students. The study also recommends future stakeholder consultation, an in-depth orientation for newly hired teachers and professional development for incumbent teachers in scaffolded language instruction.

Background. A central role of mental health professionals within the criminal justice and forensic mental health system is the assessment, management and communication of an individual's risk of future violence (Webster & Hucker, 2007). The current methodology favoured by clinicians is the structured professional judgement (SPJ) approach (Farrington, Joliffe & Johnstone, 2008). These instruments act as guides in clinical practice in that practitioners are encouraged to apply clinical judgement on the relevance of empirically validated risk factors to each client. In this way, identified risk factors can be directly used to inform individual care and treatment, i.e. risk management. Yet, research on SPJ tools is typically based on retrospective or pseudo-prospective designs, which lack in ecological validity. Furthermore, findings are based on risk assessments completed by researchers rather than clinicians. This is an issue as risk ratings differ significantly depending on professional background (de Ruiter & de Vogel, 2004). Aims. This thesis presents five studies with the aim of examining the link between violence risk assessment and management in vivo. This includes two studies focussing on the predictive validity of SPJ tools following clinical implementation; a description of the implementation procedure; a traditional research study on the predictive power of dynamic risk factors and a pilot evaluation of a short term risk assessment tool for imminent inpatient violence. Methodology. The primary research site was the State Hospital, the high secure psychiatric facility for mentally disordered offenders in Scotland and Northern Ireland. The research population consisted of 115 male forensic patients who were followed up across different risk settings for a mean of 31 months. The SPJ instruments under investigation were the HCR-20 (Webster et al, 1997), the SVR-20 (Boer, Hart, Kropp et al, 1997) and the RSVP (Hart et al, 2003). All assessments were exclusively completed by clinicians and resulted in active risk management strategies. Additionally, the predictive validity of dynamic risk factors was examined through psychometric measures of anger, impulsivity, psychiatric symptoms, unmet needs and imagined violence. The risk of imminent violence was assessed with the Dynamic Appraisal Situational Appraisal - Inpatient Version (DASA-IV, Ogloff & Daffern, 2006). Results and Conclusions. Findings indicate that clinically implemented SPJ tools are not predictive of future violence, both within and outwith secure settings. Comparison with a previous study at the State Hospital implies that the implementation process of the HCR- 20 facilitated the knowledge transfer from assessment to management, and therefore incidents were prevented. This noted the results also highlight that clinicians may accept risk tools into practice when these have not been scientifically scrutinised. This was the case with the RSVP in that there is little published data on the psychometric properties of this tool, yet its introduction replaced the SVR-20 across the State Hospital. With regards to dynamic risk factors, the severity and chronicity of psychiatric symptoms were the strongest predictors of violence. This is further corroborated by the finding that the DASA-IV predicted violence within 24 hours of ratings provided. All findings are discussed in the context of previous research and the experienced obstacles of implementing changes within NHS settings. Clinical implications and recommendations for violence assessment and management are provided in the light of acknowledged limitations.

The capabilities of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system to integrate all necessary business functions into a single system with a shared database efficiently and effectively has persuaded organisations to adopt them. Research shows that ERP implementation in both large and small to medium enterprises has been a difficult challenge for organisations throughout the years. Despite the many advantages of ERP systems, there isn't a clear and easy way of implementing them in Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The motivation for the research is to investigate the barriers to ERP software system implementation in an SME using a case study approach, and to identify the steps to overcome these barriers and investigate the claim of ERP vendors that their ERP solutions improve the performance of their customers, the profitability and efficiency of work processes. This research identifies the barriers to ERP implementation in an SME, provides an overview of the traditional and current approaches of ERP implementation and discusses the effects of adopting an ERP system on the company's overall performance. The research uses a mix of methods including case study research and action research. Un-structured interviews and semi structured interviews approaches with negotiation and change management techniques were also used in order to generate knowledge concerning the problems at the case study. The case study has determined reasons for failed implementations, unlike previous research which suggests education level impact upon the implementation of the ERP system, the study demonstrates that an insufficient education level is not a necessary condition for resistance to change. It has also been shown in this research that high level management can have a direct influence on the ERP implementation in SMEs. This research suggests that SMEs need to standardize processes into business routines which will influence the introduction of a different knowledge store that helps the development of the new system; however employee s resistance to change, lack of trust of the new system and lack of knowledge has limited the implementation process by increasing mistakes and duplication of data. The ERP system has been evaluated by the end users at the case study organisation, and the results suggests that the implementation of an ERP system has improved the overall business and has increased the performance, the profitability and the efficiency of work processes. This research adds to the overall knowledge of ERP implementation in SMEs by deriving a better understanding of the problem in the body of knowledge and identifying the barriers to ERP implementation in SMEs. It provides recommendations that have been tested in the case study organisation for overcoming ERP implementation barriers in SMEs, and a financial model of the implementation costs and benefits. Finally, the recommendations presented in this thesis and suggested areas for further research set out the potential way forward to advance knowledge in this area.