Mergers and incorporations are relatively new phenomena in the South African higher education landscape. The unbundling of Vista University, and the subsequent incorporation ofVUDEC into the merger between Unisa and TSA, posed a major challenge to all affected employees. This thesis focuses on how these employees experienced the various stages of the incorporation process. A social construction of inner and outer voices heard, shared, and read during the different phases of the incorporation process attempts to describe how to conserve the self in a merger. The aim of the thesis is to build towards a framework for dealing with the human aspect during institutional mergers and incorporations. The thesis consists of a prologue, a series of four manuscripts that report on the experiences of employees during the different phases of the merger process, and an epilogue. Each manuscript focuses on a specific phase or aspect of the incorporation process, with its own research focus, aims, and methodology. The first two manuscripts reflect on the pre-merger phase. The first manuscript reports on employees' preparation for the incorporation. Following a social constructionist grounded theory approach, four participating employees gained the opportunity to reflect on their own experiences of well-being during the pre-merger phase. The manuscript also reports on a wellness development workshop, attended by 35 representatives from various departments and units of Vista University during the pre-merger phase. The second manuscript reports on how employees embraced the VUDEC institutional culture. A case study approach was selected for semi-structured interviews with 17 participants from governance, academic and administrative departments, and post-graduate programmes. By means of content analysis, the institutional culture ofVUDEC was captured on the eve of the incorporation into Unisa. The third manuscript focuses on employees' experiences of the four-year transition and implementation phases of the incorporation. This manuscript follows a social identity approach, and through thematic analysis, reports on how 24 participants experienced the four-year implementation of the incorporation process. The fourth manuscript provides an overview of the human side of mergers as depicted in both national and international literature. The aim is to position the current longitudinal investigation and its findings in the broader higher education landscape, and a survival kit for conserving the self in a merger is proposed. / Psychology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Psychology)

The integration of computer technology in education has been a worldwide issue that has been supported and equally criticized by many. However, the practicability of computer technology in education cannot be overlooked, and this reality led to this study. This qualitative study aimed to explore the extents to which computer technology has been integrated in teaching and learning in Namibian schools, and three central schools in the town of Katima Mulilo (Zambezi Region) were investigated in this regard. The study explored possible benefits of computer technology in education, and sought to understand the way learners perceive computer technology. The study findings showed that teachers were unable to use computers to teach due to lack of resources and skills, whereas learners indicated willingness to embrace computer technology in education. Findings further showed greater need to equip schools with computer technology and training teachers. Based on the findings, recommendations were made to train teachers in integrating computer technology, and that schools should be provided with necessary computer technology resources. / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (Comparative Education)

La construction d'algorithmes classifiant des images à grande échelle est devenue une t^ache essentielle du fait de la difficulté d'effectuer des recherches dans les immenses collections de données visuelles non-etiquetées présentes sur Internet. L'objetif est de classifier des images en fonction de leur contenu pour simplifier la gestion de telles bases de données. La classification d'images à grande échelle est un problème complexe, de par l'importance de la taille des ensembles de données, tant en nombre d'images qu'en nombre de classes. Certaines de ces classes sont dites "fine-grained" (sémantiquement proches les unes des autres) et peuvent même ne contenir aucun représentant étiqueté. Dans cette thèse, nous utilisons des représentations à l'état de l'art d'images et nous concentrons sur des méthodes d'apprentissage efficaces. Nos contributions sont (1) un banc d'essai d'algorithmes d'apprentissage pour la classification à grande échelle et (2) un nouvel algorithme basé sur l'incorporation d'étiquettes pour apprendre sur des données peu abondantes. En premier lieu, nous introduisons un banc d'essai d'algorithmes d'apprentissage pour la classification à grande échelle, dans un cadre entièrement supervisé. Il compare plusieurs fonctions objectifs pour apprendre des classifieurs linéaires, tels que "un contre tous", "multiclasse", "classement", "classement avec pondération" par descente de gradient stochastique. Ce banc d'essai se conclut en un ensemble de recommandations pour la classification à grande échelle. Avec une simple repondération des données, la stratégie "un contre tous" donne des performances meilleures que toutes les autres. Par ailleurs, en apprentissage en ligne, un pas d'apprentissage assez petit s'avère suffisant pour obtenir des résultats au niveau de l'état de l'art. Enfin, l'arrêt prématuré de la descente de gradient stochastique introduit une régularisation qui améliore la vitesse d'entraînement ainsi que la capacité de régularisation. Deuxièmement, face à des milliers de classes, il est parfois difficile de rassembler suffisamment de données d'entraînement pour chacune des classes. En particulier, certaines classes peuvent être entièrement dénuées d'exemples. En conséquence, nous proposons un nouvel algorithme adapté à ce scénario d'apprentissage dit "zero-shot". Notre algorithme utilise des données parallèles, comme les attributs, pour incorporer les classes dans un espace euclidien. Nous introduisons par ailleurs une fonction pour mesurer la compatibilité entre image et étiquette. Les paramètres de cette fonction sont appris en utilisant un objectif de type "ranking". Notre algorithme dépasse l'état de l'art pour l'apprentissage "zero-shot", et fait preuve d'une grande flexibilité en permettant d'incorporer d'autres sources d'information parallèle, comme des hiérarchies. Il permet en outre une transition sans heurt du cas "zero-shot" au cas où peu d'exemples sont disponibles. / Building algorithms that classify images on a large scale is an essential task due to the difficulty in searching massive amount of unlabeled visual data available on the Internet. We aim at classifying images based on their content to simplify the manageability of such large-scale collections. Large-scale image classification is a difficult problem as datasets are large with respect to both the number of images and the number of classes. Some of these classes are fine grained and they may not contain any labeled representatives. In this thesis, we use state-of-the-art image representations and focus on efficient learning methods. Our contributions are (1) a benchmark of learning algorithms for large scale image classification, and (2) a novel learning algorithm based on label embedding for learning with scarce training data. Firstly, we propose a benchmark of learning algorithms for large scale image classification in the fully supervised setting. It compares several objective functions for learning linear classifiers such as one-vs-rest, multiclass, ranking and weighted average ranking using the stochastic gradient descent optimization. The output of this benchmark is a set of recommendations for large-scale learning. We experimentally show that, online learning is well suited for large-scale image classification. With simple data rebalancing, One-vs-Rest performs better than all other methods. Moreover, in online learning, using a small enough step size with respect to the learning rate is sufficient for state-of-the-art performance. Finally, regularization through early stopping results in fast training and a good generalization performance. Secondly, when dealing with thousands of classes, it is difficult to collect sufficient labeled training data for each class. For some classes we might not even have a single training example. We propose a novel algorithm for this zero-shot learning scenario. Our algorithm uses side information, such as attributes to embed classes in a Euclidean space. We also introduce a function to measure the compatibility between an image and a label. The parameters of this function are learned using a ranking objective. Our algorithm outperforms the state-of-the-art for zero-shot learning. It is flexible and can accommodate other sources of side information such as hierarchies. It also allows for a smooth transition from zero-shot to few-shots learning.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T14:27:17Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 MarconiNM_DISSERT.pdf: 1604654 bytes, checksum: 1a40c5a923cdcf5e57435a4636aae127 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-10-19 / The economic regional integration is a phenomenon observed in numerous occasions inside the global economic reality. Watchful to that phenomenon, the 1988 s Brazilian constitutional order establish in its 4th article, single paragraph, the commitment to seek for the Latin- American integration, as a Fundamental Principle to the Brazilian Federative Republic. Regarding the mentioned constitutional disposition s realization, the Brazilian State celebrated, specially, the 1980 s Montevideo Treaty, creating the Latin-American Integration Association, and the 1991 s Asuncion Treaty, performing the duty to establish a common market, in sub regional level, with Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, called Mercado Comum do Sul. However, due to an addiction to a wrong comprehension of State s Sovereignty Principle, the Constitution imposes to the international rules an incorporation process, without providing any privilege to those ones regarding the integration constitutional disposition s realization, whether original or derived. The Brazilian s Supreme Court, as matter of fact, affirmed that it is not possible, facing the actual constitutional order, to grant any character of preference. Also in the controversies solution mechanism, responsible for the law s execution in case of its noncompliance, where found malfunctions, most notably the system s open character and its excessive procedural flexibility, in addiction to restricting the access of individuals. It follows from these findings, then, the lack of legal certainty provided by the Mercosul s legal system, considering its effects both international and within the Brazilian state. Among the possible solutions to reduce or eliminate the problem are using the practice of the so-called executive agreements in the Mercosul s original rules incorporation to the Brazilian state, the creation of a Mercosul s court of law and/or a constitutional reform / A integra??o regional econ?mica ? um fen?meno observado em diversas ocasi?es na realidade econ?mica global. Atenta a este fen?meno, a ordem constitucional brasileira de 1988 consigna em seu art. 4?, par?grafo ?nico, o compromisso de busca pela integra??o latino-americana, na qualidade de Princ?pio Fundamental da Rep?blica Federativa do Brasil. Com o fito de realizar o dispositivo constitucional, o Estado brasileiro celebrou, especialmente, o Tratado de Montevid?u de 1980, instituindo a Associa??o Latino-Americana de Integra??o, e o Tratado de Assun??o de 1991, firmando o compromisso de estabelecer um mercado comum, em n?vel sub-regional, com Argentina, Paraguai e Uruguai, chamado Mercado Comum do Sul. Entretanto, por apego a uma compreens?o inadequada do Princ?pio da Soberania Estatal, a Constitui??o imp?e ?s normas internacionais um processo de incorpora??o, sem prever quaisquer privil?gios ?quelas destinadas ? realiza??o do objetivo integracionista, sejam elas origin?rias ou derivadas. O Supremo Tribunal Federal, inclusive, em manifesta??o sobre quest?o referente ao direito da integra??o mercosulino, afirmou n?o lhe ser poss?vel, na conforma??o atual da Constitui??o, a concess?o de qualquer car?ter de prefer?ncia. Tamb?m no mecanismo de solu??o de controv?rsias, respons?vel por fazer executar o direito em caso de seu descumprimento, encontram-se disfuncionamentos, destacando-se a abertura do sistema e sua excessiva flexibilidade procedimental, al?m da restri??o ao acesso de particulares. Resulta dessas constata??es, ent?o, a insufici?ncia da seguran?a jur?dica proporcionada pelo sistema jur?dico mercosulino, considerando quer seus efeitos internacionais e quer seus efeitos dentro do Estado brasileiro. Dentre as poss?veis solu??es para redu??o ou elimina??o do problema, encontram-se a utiliza??o da pr?tica dos chamados acordos executivos na incorpora??o das normas origin?rias mercosulinas ao Estado brasileiro, a cria??o de um tribunal de justi?a do Mercosul e/ou a reforma constitucional

The aim of this work is to analyse the companies under the private international and European law, their cross-border mobility and the problems associated therewith. Crucial emphasis is placed on the synthesis of foreign and Czech authors and confrontation of theory and practice in the light of the current global development of company law in private international law. The key point is the determination of personal status of the company and the conflict between the incorporation theory and the real seat theory. At the outset the author explains the reasons which led him to write this thesis, including the methods used to do so. The whole thesis is divided into four main thematic areas. In the first chapter, some of the basic concepts are defined in order to clarify the thematic framework within which the thesis will be dealt with. The second chapter addresses the definition of the term "Company", its personal status, various approaches to determine the effects of different conflict theories and the regulatory competition arising thereof. The third part deals with a detailed analysis of the Czech law, in particular with the relationship between the Czech Republic and foreign companies, the concept of residence, criteria for determining personal status and different approaches to the cross-border...

The master thesis "Comparison of the process of establishment of Private Limited Company in the Czech Republic and in Austria" deals with the main characteristics and the process of establishment of Private Limited Company in the Czech Republic and in Austria. The goal of this thesis is to compare the process of establishment in a clear way to enable the reader to understand the similarities and differences between the process of establishment in the Czech Republic and in Austria. The thesis is divided into thematic units to be synoptic, the development of legal regulation of Private Limited Company in the Czech Republic and in Austria is shortly described in the first one. The following chapters focus separately on the process of establishment in the Czech Republic and in Austria and the last chapter compares both legislations.

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Le constat de départ de cette recherche, souligné par la littérature, est celui du débat permanent au sein des organisations créatives, entre priorités artistiques et créatives d'un côté et intérêts économiques de l'autre côté. Nous interrogeons la manière dont les acteurs créatifs gèrent les contraintes économiques qui les entourent dans ce contexte marqué par la rationalisation. Au travers d'une étude qualitative et approfondie de l'industrie de la mode -entretiens et travail ethnographique, nous avons observé les pratiques quotidiennes des acteurs créatifs du secteur. Premièrement, et au travers du travail de Michel de Certeau, nous révélons ici les différentes tactiques et autres arrangements que ceux-ci développent vis-à-vis des contraintes, une forme d'action qui joue un rôle important dans les organisations créatives. Cette forme d'action, que l'on nomme trouble du créatif, entretient une ambiguïté autour du travail créatif en organisation, nécessaire pour créer. Ensuite, nous révélons les forces socio-matérielles et affectives qui constituent les pratiques créatives de façon intrinsèque, et soulignons le poids de telles forces dans la négociation permanente avec les motifs économiques. Subséquemment, nous proposons le concept de créativité-en-action, une manière à la fois incarnée, matérielle et affective d'agir créatif, au sein des industries créatives. / This PhD departs from the research literature that underlines the on-going debate arising in creative companies, between art/creative priorities on the one hand and economic/business interests on the other hand. We wonder how actors involved into the creative process deal with economic and rationalization constraints. Through an in-depth, qualitative study in fashion industry -interviews and ethnographic work, we investigate empirically the daily practices of creative actors. First, and notably through Michel de Certeau's work, we reveal the various tactics and arrangements that they develop towards such constraints, as a form of action that plays an important role in creative organizations. This form of action we call creative fuzziness maintains a necessary ambiguity around creative work. Second, we underline the socio-material and affective forces that inherently constitute creative practices, and how much such forces weigh in the economic negotiation. We then suggest the concept of creativity-in-action, an embodied-material and affective way of acting creative, within creative industries.

Au Bhoutan, au Népal et au Québec, les religions minoritaires font l’objet de nombreux soupçons dans la population, par lesquels des acteurs de la scène publique et politique justifient leur encadrement, voire leur exclusion de l’espace national. Ces soupçons ne vont que s’amplifiant si la religion en question est étroitement associée à un groupe ethnique minoritaire. Ces craintes autour de la perception d’une élision ethnicité-religion perturbatrice de l’ordre social majoritaire reposent davantage sur des mythes nationaux construits autour de, et en réaction à certaines religions que sur une véritable contestation inhérente aux regroupements religieux. La contribution de la religion, particulièrement en contexte migratoire et minoritaire, à la participation pleine et active dans la nouvelle société-hôte a été amplement démontrée. La religion aide à faire sens des expériences migratoires, fournissant un ancrage notoire aux nouveaux arrivants dans leur milieu. Le groupe religieux fournit quant à lui aide matérielle, psychologique et social aux nouveaux arrivants. Cette étude, menée en région de Montréal, auprès de deux congrégations rassemblant des réfugiés Népalo-bhoutanais convertis au christianisme, fait la lumière sur le rôle de la religion en tant qu’espace de négociation entre les normes imposées – religieuses comme séculières – aux croyants et la subjectivité de leur expérience religieuse. En suivant le parcours migratoire forcé des Népalo-bhoutanais membres de ces congrégations, j’explore l’impact des impératifs d’intégration des localités, les environnements sociaux et matériels, géographiquement et historiquement situés, sur les négociations permises par la religion. Je fais voir que les tensions et les conflits qui peuvent émerger de ces négociations n’impliquent pas la fin de la cohésion sociale. Plutôt, ces négociations informent un vivre-ensemble caractérisé par une certaine convivialité. J’étudie deux manifestations de ces négociations et de leur impact sur le vivre-ensemble. La conversion au christianisme est la première de ces négociations. Performée en milieu hindou, elle fait voir comment la religion répond à un besoin de recomposition de soi à la suite d’expériences de souffrance, de perte de sens et d’exclusion. En dépit du défi qu’elle lance à l’ordre social hindou et du lot de conséquences qu’elle entraîne, la conversion permet de se projeter dans une identité dignifiée et un nouveau groupe de pairs. Performée en contexte québécois, la conversion est le point de départ d’une renégociation de sa lecture passée de la religion. Elle est l’occasion de réaliser un soi idéalisé, sans crainte de représailles sociales. Dans les deux contextes, la conversion constitue une négociation entre les impératifs d’intégration de la localité et les aspirations que le croyant porte. Le choix du groupe religieux, de la congrégation, est également le fruit de négociations. Les Népalo-bhoutanais chrétiens se rassemblaient initialement au sein d’une même congrégation multiethnique, l’Église Originelle. La majorité d’entre eux ont depuis quitté et fondé leur propre congrégation, Naya Mandali. Malgré le spectre ethnico-religieux qui plane sur cette décision en vertu de certains référents ethniques autour desquels s’est fondée Naya Mandali, ceux-ci n’expliquent pas à eux seuls le schisme. Le choix de langue, de style de célébration, et la division suivant les appartenances de jati recoupent effectivement des facteurs de divisions proprement sociologiques, tels qu’une transition de figure d’autorité, des styles de gouvernance préférés et des pressions d’acteurs extérieurs au groupe religieux. Des revendications proprement religieuses sont aussi évoquées, en dépit des référents ethniques. Ainsi, le choix du népali se veut davantage un outil facilitant la compréhension et la diffusion du message religieux. La langue vernaculaire de la localité ne s’en trouve pas pour autant évacuée de la présentation des cultes. La congrégation fait bel et bien de la visite de francophones une préoccupation. Ces visiteurs devraient pouvoir suivre minimalement le culte. L’objectif derrière la fondation de Naya Mandali est de s’actualiser en tant que chrétien bien plus qu’en tant que Népalo-bhoutanais. Chacune des congrégations issues du schisme traduit une façon de faire Église distincte. Plutôt qu’une menace à la cohésion de la société-hôte, la fondation de Naya Mandali est une manifestation des formes insoupçonnées d’incorporation permises par la religion. Fruit d’une des négociations entre les impératifs d’intégration inculqués par les sociétés-hôtes et les aspirations des croyants, la congrégation népalo-bhoutanaise a dû créer des contacts avec des chrétiens d’autres églises de la localité. Ainsi, ils ont tissé des liens avec des non-migrants qu’ils n’auraient autrement pas rencontrés. Par le biais de la religion, les schismatiques ont réalisé, de manière quelque peu subversive, différents impératifs d’intégration des localités traversées : l’autonomisation, la prise en charge et l’accomplissement de soi. / In Bhutan, in Nepal as in Quebec, minority religions are subjected to a number of suspicions justifying their regulations, if not their exclusion from national space. Those suspicions only increase if the religion in question is also closely associated with an ethnic minority group. Those fears concerned with a perceived ethnicity-religion elision disruptive of the majoritarian social order have more to do with national myths built around, and in reaction to, certain religions more than with any genuine contestation inherent to religious groupings. Religion’s contribution to, particularly in a migratory and minoritarian context, a full and active participation in a new host society has been amply demonstrated. Religion helps make sense of migratory experiences, contributing to a notable anchoring of newcomers to their surroundings. The religious group, for its part, contributes a material, psychological and social help to newcomers. This study, conducted alongside two congregations gathering Nepalo-bhutanese converts to christianity in a Montreal region, sheds light on religion’s role as a space of negociation between imposed norms – religious as well as secular – to believers and the subjectivity of their religious experience. By following the trajectory of the forced migration of the members of both congregations, I explore the impact of the integration imperatives of localities, the geographycally and historically situated social and material environnements, on the negociations enabled by religion. I show that tensions and conflicts which can arise from those negociations do not entail an end to social cohesion. Rather, they inform a vivre-ensemble caracterised by a certain conviviality. Two manifestations of these negociations and their impact on the vivre-ensemble are studied. Conversion to christianity is the first of them. Performed in a hindu context, it shows how religion answers a need for a recomposition of the self following experiences of suffering, loss of meaning and exclusion. Despite the challenge it levels at the hindu social order and of the consequences it carries, conversion enables to project oneself in a dignified identity and a new peer group. Performed in the Quebec context, conversion is the starting point of a renegociation with one’s past reading of religion. It is the occasion to realise an idealised self, without fear of social reprisal. In both contexts, conversion constitutes a negociation between the locality’s integration imperatives and the believer’s yearnings. The choice of the religious grouping, the congregation, is also the result of negociations. The Nepalo-bhutanese christians initially gathered in the same multiethnic congregation, l’Église Originelle. The majority of them have since left and created their own congregation, Naya Mandali. Despite the « ethnico-religious » spectre looming over their decision, the ethnic referents around which Naya Mandali was built cannot by themselves explain the division. Linguistic choice, celebrations’ style and Jati divisions intersect effectively with properly sociological divisive factors, such as a transition in authority figures, prefered leadership styles and pressure from figures external to the religious grouping. Properly religious claims are also made, despite ethnic referents. Thus, the choice of Nepali speaks more to the tools it represents in enabling a better understanding and transmission of the religious message. The locality’s vernacular language is not necessarily evacuated from the cult’s presentation for it, the congregation making the possibility of francophone visitors one of their preoccupation. The actualization of the self as a better christian is much more the objectif behind the creation of Naya Mandali than the actualization of a nepalese self. The two congregations that emerged from the schism translate a distinct way of doing Church. Instead of a meance to the host society,s cohesion, the creation of Naya Mandali is a manifestation of the unexpected modes of incorporation enabled by religion. The results of negociations between integration imperatives instilled by the host societies and the believers’ yearnings, the Nepalo-bhutanese congregation had to create contacts with the localities’ other christians. Thus, they established contacts with non-migrants who would have not met them otherwise. Through religion’s medium, the schismatics have fulfilled, in a somewhat subversive way, the integration imperatives of the localities they navigated across: autonomisation, responsabilisation and self-fulfilment.

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