No description available.

This study seeks to investigate the causes and implications of apostasy in the West Zimbabwe Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church from 1998 to 2008. The research was undertaken due to the realisation that apostasy has reached a point of concern to both members and local church leadership. The researcher also noted with concern that not much if any has been done on the causes and implications of apostasy since the introduction of the Church in Zimbabwe over one hundred years ago and the organisation of the West Zimbabwe Conference about forty years ago. The research was motivated by these concerns coupled with the increasing number of apostasy which continuously reflect negatively on the church and may subsequently limit the church’s ability to evangelize the communities. The aim of the study therefore is to investigate the causes and implications of apostasy and make recommendations that will assist both church members and the church leadership in formulating policies and programs geared towards minimizing apostasy in the church. The study combines both the quantitative and the qualitative research designs. The population for the study consisted of the one hundred and seventy one (171) churches with a total church membership of one hundred and fifty three thousand, seven hundred and two (153,702). A sample percentage of ten was adopted for the selection of churches while the proportional stratified sampling technique was used. The instruments used for the study were both face and content validated and a pilot study carried out to determine the reliability of the questionnaire. The data collected from the study was analysed using descriptive statistics and a descriptive interpretive method. Findings from the study confirm that there is apostasy within the WZC of the Seventhday Adventist Church. Accordingly, the data analysis revealed that the causes of apostasy in order of magnitude are external, internal and doctrinal respectively. The study also revealed that youths, females and urban church members are highly susceptible to apostasy than their adult, male and rural counterparts respectively. Apostasy had a considerable effect on church membership as well as the receiving of tithes and offerings. Recommendations were made based on the findings of the research. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / D. Th. (Church History)

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate a clothing construction waiver test at Utah State University so it can become a better predictor of student past experience and future performance. The original test and a revised test, written by the investigator, were used as the instrument. The subjects included two groups of students --those who had taken the Basic Clothing Construction Course at Utah State University and those who had not taken the course. The results indicate that there is a difference between the knowledge of the students who have and have not taken the course. lt was also indicated that those students who waived the course had knowledge similar to those students who had taken the course and which those students who had not taken the course lacked. It was found that there was a positive correlation between number of years of junior high and high school clothing construction experience and test scores. The correlation between 4-H club clothing experience and test scores was not found to be significant. An item-analysis of the test revealed that many items were poor discriminators. The test was found to be quite reliable. Further evaluation and revision of the test is needed.

La motivation et l’implication organisationnelle occupent une place essentielle dans les stratégies et politiques de gestions des ressources humaines de toute entreprise. Elles font partie des moyens par lesquels on cherche à maximiser l’apport des membres de l’organisation et par là la réussite de cette dernière. La présente étude interculturelle, qui porte sur une entreprise minière au Niger, s’interroge sur les effets de la culture individualiste/collectiviste sur la motivation des travailleurs mais aussi sur les conséquences des comportements antisociaux au travail (CAAT). Sur la base des résultats d’études antérieures mais aussi de façon exploratoire nous avons postulé une culture collectiviste au Niger, l’expression et la valorisation de la motivation extrinsèque et enfin une baisse de la motivation, une amotivation et une baisse de l’implication dans le travail conséquemment aux CAAT. La méthodologie mise en œuvre, qui comporte des observations et entretiens, puis l’administration d’un questionnaire auprès d’une population de 350 personnes tout venant mais aussi cadres et non cadres d’une société minière, nous permet d’observer des résultats concordants et discordants avec les théories abordées. Cette population se montre collectiviste, alors que contrairement à la littérature, elle est plus motivée intrinsèquement et ne valorise pas socialement la motivation extrinsèque. En ce qui concerne les CAAT, les effets partiels - de la dégradation et/ou appropriation des biens appartenant à l’organisation, du non respect des règlements et procédures de l’organisation, des agressions physique envers une personne, des agressions psychologiques au sein de l’organisation et des contraintes imposées par l’organisation aux travailleurs- mis en évidence permettent de parler d'une démotivation mais aussi une baisse de l’implication dans le travail qui prendrait des chemins différents en fonction du contexte culturel et le statut des travailleurs. / Motivation and work commitment play a major role in human resources strategy and policy in any workplace. They help in maximising individuals’ contributions to an organisation and so improve its success. The following inter-cultural study, carried out on a mining firm in Niger, asks examines the effects of an individualist or collectivist culture on worker motivation and on the consequences of anti-social behaviour within the workplace (CAAT). Based on pre-existing and exploratory research, the following hypothesises were made. There is in Niger a collectivist culture, with the favouring of extrinsic motivation, falling motivation, leading to a de-motivation and a reduction in work commitment provoked by CAAT. The methodology used observations and interviews followed by the completion of a questionnaire by a diverse sample of 350 people including executives and non-executives of a mining company, produced results that were both in agreement and disagreement with the theoretical hypotheses. The population is shown to be collectivist, but contrary to the literature is more intrinsically motivated and does not favour socially extrinsic motivation. The various effects of CAAT- degradation and/or theft of the organisation’s property, non-respect of rules and procedures, physical and psychological aggression towards individuals within the workplace constrains imposed by the organisation on workers- are signs of a de-motivation but also a reduction of work commitment that takes different forms depending on the cultural context and status of employees.

Implication is a logical connective corresponding to the rule of causality "if ... then ...". Implications allow one to organize knowledge of some field of application in an intuitive and convenient manner. This thesis explores possibilities of automatic construction of all valid implications (implicative theory) in a given field. As the main method for constructing implicative theories a robust active learning technique called Attribute Exploration was used. Attribute Exploration extracts knowledge from existing data and offers a possibility of refining this knowledge via providing counter-examples. In frames of the project implicative theories were constructed automatically for two mathematical domains: algebraic identities and parametrically expressible functions. This goal was achieved thanks both pragmatical approach of Attribute Exploration and discoveries in respective fields of application. The two diverse application fields favourably illustrate different possible usage patterns of Attribute Exploration for automatic construction of implicative theories.

Thèse numérisée par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Ce travail de recherche a commencé à Xalapa, dans l'État de Veracruz, au Mexique. Son but est d'approfondir les connaissances sur l'implication de la famille au jardin d'enfants. Cent quatre-vingt-douze parents ont été choisis au hasard parmi ceux qui ont inscrit leur enfant dans un de vingt et un jardins d'enfants. Ils ont répondu à un questionnaire que nous leur avons soumis. L'analyse des réponses nous a permis d'identifier les différents profils d'implication parentale. Cette analyse nous a aussi permis de préciser les modalités de la participation des parents et de leur implication, de répertorier les activités auxquelles les parents participent, d'identifier les facteurs qui influencent leur implication dans l'éducation préscolaire de leurs enfants. Nous avons pu aussi spécifier le rôle des enseignants dans les activités prévues pour les parents et, finalement, déterminer les bénéfices pour les enfants lies à la participation de leurs parents. Nous avons analysé les réponses en fonction des subventions économiques des jardins d'enfants et de leur emploi du temps. Parmi les résultats que nous avons montré que les femmes s'impliquent davantage dans l'éducation préscolaire des enfants. Les perceptions passés des parents et leur passage à l'école influencent la manière de s'impliquer dans l'école de leurs enfants. Enfin, établir et maintenir de bonnes relations entre la famille et les jardins d'enfants fait partie de la vie quotidienne des enseignants, rôle très bien accepté, voire demandé par les parents. / This research started in Xalapa, in Veracruz, Mexico. Its objective is to improve the knowledge of parental participation and involvement in preschool education. One hundred and ninety-two parents, who had enrolled their child in one of the twenty-one participating kindergartens, were selected. The parents answered a questionnaire that we gave to them. With an exploratory analysis of the collected data, our objective was to understand not only differences but also the similarities between the parents and their involvement in the preschool environment; to identify the parent's way of participating and also their involvement; to discover the different activities in which the parents participated; to show the different elements that determine the parents implication in their child's preschool education; to evaluate the teachers role in the activities designed for the parents, and finally to determine the benefits for the child due to the parents participation. We analysed the answers from different perspectives: financial support for the kindergarten and their work schedule. Amongst the results found were that women's involvement is more important than the man's. The parent's past perception and their school experiences define their involvement in their child's preschool education. Finally, to have and maintain good relationship between family and the kindergarten is part of the day-to-day work of teachers and that is also a requirement for the parents.

No description available.

Le récit littéraire au tournant du XXIe siècle peut se présenter sous la forme du récit d’enquête. Cette thèse se propose d’examiner ce modèle tel que le mettent en œuvre Thierry Beinstingel, Jean Rolin et Emmanuel Carrère. La pratique de ces trois écrivains pourrait permettre de mieux repérer l’esthétique et les enjeux de cette modalité narrative en émergence. Dans ces récits, le narrateur se trouve d’abord privé de vérité par un récit autoritaire, contre lequel il reconquiert son autonomie perceptive. Sa liberté retrouvée se manifeste par l’entrée dans l’enquête. Le narrateur élit alors un objet de recherche, un motif aléatoire ou improbable, personne, projet, objet, territoire et entreprend le récit de son exploration. À partir de ce prétexte, il interroge donc le sens de sa présence au monde et s’observe percevant, lisant, interprétant et réagissant. Sa liberté se traduit alors par son implication sensible et réflexive. Entre récit de réalité et fiction, ces récits volontiers digressifs opèrent aux confins de la narration, de l’essai et de l’investigation journalistique. Un tel modèle met en œuvre une attitude ou un ethos de chercheur hésitant et perplexe. Cependant, se construit en arrière-plan une dynamique à la fois narrative et réflexive, au cours de laquelle l’énonciateur entre dans l’observation intense du monde présent, y conduit librement sa réflexion au moyen, entre autres, de la dérive essayistique, renouvelle le discours critique sur l’état de société et propose des modalités de reconstruction imaginaire du monde, réaffirmant une liberté créatrice, voire une capacité insurrectionnelle contre la prétention du monde tel qu’il est à être le seul possible. / Literary narrative forms at the dawn of 21st century sometimes take the form of an enquiry. The present thesis aims to examine in detail this narrative technique as practised by Thierry Beinstingel, Emmanuel Carrère et Jean Rolin. The way they use it could help to understand and identify the aesthetic qualities and purposes of this emerging narrative mode. In these stories, the narrator feels his own thoughts as locked inside an authoritarian doxa which he must first overcome to recover his freedom of perception. He can then become involved in the enquiry, which can be understood as a phenomenological way to be aware. He then selects an arbitrary or improbable motif as the goal for his quest, which may be a person, an object, a project, an area, and undertakes to tell the story of his own inquiry. From this starting point, he begins to question the meaning of his existence and to observe himself making sense of, reading, thinking about and reacting to things. Between fiction and nonfiction, these frequently digressive tales often border on novels, essays or investigation journalism. The narrator always looks puzzled, hesitant and does not seem to trust his own approach. Yet in the background we witness the emergence of a dynamic both narrative and introspective through which the narrator becomes an acute observer of the world around him. He follows freely his train of thought through among other things the use of the essay form to drift from an idea to the next, finding new means of expressing the critique of social problems, creating novel ways of building new fictional worlds and perhaps even managing to rebel against the idea that there is no alternative to the world as it exists.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which account for 96% of businesses in Nigeria are often forced to close because they lack access to funds. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the sources of funds available for the development and growth of SMEs in Nigeria. The conceptual framework guiding this study was the pecking order theory. Data were gathered from company documents and through semistructured interviews of a target population of 3 leaders of 3 SMEs from the oil and gas industry in Abuja, Kano, and Lagos in Nigeria, with a capitalization of between N5 million to N500 million. Data were compiled and organized, disassembled into fragments, reassembled into a sequence of groups, and interpreted for meaning. Member checking and triangulation of sources between the interviews and company documents added to the trustworthiness of the findings. Two themes morphed from the study: sources of business finance for SMEs and constraints of sourcing of finance for business. The implications for positive social change include the potential to create employment opportunities for youths in the communities by enabling SMEs in Nigeria to succeed and expand through the identification of sources of funding.