The perception of pets as ‘family members’ is an important area of research in the study of human-animal relationships. The objective of this thesis is to assess the ways in which pets are integrated into the home, and to explore how pet owners regard their dogs and cats within their constructed circles of kinship and social bonds. This research also examines a sample of attitudes toward some important issues with pet keeping, from what constitutes responsible pet guardianship to modern issues in animal welfare. Thirty-four participants were recruited, and data was collected through individual qualitative interviews. Data analysis shows the level of integration of the pet into the family has some correlations with the gender of the primary pet caretaker, and shows the impact of individual experiences of participants, particularly in childhood, which strongly influenced preferences of pet type, and their view of the role of animals in the home.

The representation of Balinese people and culture within scholarship throughout the 20th century and into the most recent 21st century studies is examined. Important questions are considered, such as: What major themes can be found within the literature?; Which scholars have most influenced the discourse?; How has Bali been presented within undergraduate anthropology textbooks, which scholars have been considered; and how have the Balinese been affected by scholarly representation? Consideration is also given to scholars who are Balinese and doing their own research on Bali, an area that has not received much attention. The results of this study indicate that notions of Balinese culture and identity have been largely constructed by “Outsiders”: 14th-19th century European traders and early theorists; Dutch colonizers; other Indonesians; and first and second wave twentieth century scholars, including, to a large degree, anthropologists. Notions of Balinese culture, and of culture itself, have been vigorously critiqued and deconstructed to such an extent that is difficult to determine whether or not the issue of what it is that constitutes Balinese culture has conclusively been answered.

In many African countries, including Ethiopia, decades of ruthless dictatorships and civil war, were followed by an almost universal demand for democracy combined with a seemingly willing leadership. However, two decades since this significant upsurge to adopt democratic governance, many are left wondering about the depth of commitment to this effort and the sincerity of political leaders. In fact, many dictators and autocrats have adopted the language of democracy and some of its formal elements. Academics, donor countries, and international organizations are struggling to identify an appropriate model of governance. The theory of semi-authoritarianism strives to address this issue of ambiguity by placing the responsibility for democratization, or the lack thereof, with the political leadership. The argument here is that many countries seemingly in transition are not. Rather, they are semi-authoritarian by design as the political elite has a vested interest in preventing democratic consolidation. The theory of semi-authoritarianism attempts to explain the continuation of false democracies. However, the theory is too broad and superficial, it raises just as many questions as it attempts to address. The attempt to classify and explain emerging political trends in countries such as Ethiopia without an appreciation of deeper forces beyond elite manipulation can jeopardize a realistic appraisal of the fate of democracy.

In today’s business world, it appears to be impossible for companies to survive without expanding through deals that result in mergers and acquisitions. Mergers and acquisitions represent a favourable medium of growth. However, studies indicate a high rate of failure in these operations. Evidently, there are areas that are mismanaged during the course of a merger or acquisition.   If organizations make a decision to go through a merger or acquisition, it is vital that they devote significant attention and resources to understand and deal with opportunities and challenges presented during its processes. Through our research we have come to identify four important aspects as integral to a successful merger and acquisition. These components: culture, synergies, leadership and politics, each independently and together when mismanaged become the source of a merger or acquisition failing.  If we are to envision the newly formed organization post a merger or acquisition as the structure, we see these four components as the pillars of this structure.  The strength or weakness of these pillars will determine the future of the newly formed organization.  At the other end of the spectrum, the very core aspects that result in success, we believe when mismanaged can spell catastrophe for the organization. However, lessons in mismanagement in these very four strategic areas can be the game changer that could possibly turn a merger and acquisition failure into success. It is only through an analytical study of the mismanagement pertinent in these four individual areas that we arrive at answers so that we may change this dominant trend of failure in mergers and acquisitions.

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As Extension begins to develop educational program delivery strategies for Emergency Preparedness and Management education, the major challenge will be to establish a culture among county agriculture and natural resources (ANR) Extension agents to integrate this educational programming into ongoing programming to ensure added value to this innovation and its unit of adoption. The attitudes and perceptions of these ANR agents in overall programming efforts will be extremely important for adoption and further dissemination of Emergency Preparedness and Management education to all clientele; therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine what Extension ANR agents perceived as advantages and obstacles associated with the organization and implementation of Emergency Preparedness and Management education and the necessity for establishing local animal issues committees. The study population was Texas AgriLife Extension Service ANR agents. The agents were from both rural and urban counties, in various stages in their careers and various stages of the organization, facilitation and implementation of Emergency Preparedness and Management education and animal issues committee establishment. An online instrument was developed based on a review of related literature. The instrument had 19 total question sets pertaining to the 4 objectives of the study and included matrix, multiple choice and yes/no questions. Questions to obtain demographic information (gender, age, Extension affiliation, years of employment with Extension, and county size) were also asked. Results indicated ANR agents felt Extension should be involved in the organization, planning and implementation of educational efforts in Emergency Preparedness and Management and also the establishment and maintenance of Animal Issues Committees. ANR agents indicated Extension?s best approach would be to help identify innovators, adopters and the resources needed for Emergency Preparedness and Management and Animal Issues Committees. The success or failure of educational programming for Emergency Management depends on the help or assistance that is provided by the key stakeholders and agencies in counties. From this study, it is apparent local stakeholder and agency involvement has been an advantage and obstacle for Texas AgriLife Extension ANR agents in the state of Texas.

Abstract Election to provide opportunities and pipelines for political participation, related to the development of political system and the implementation of democratic politics, the regime is peaceful, orderly transfer of tools, is also an important democratic process, which is a democratic country to maintain political legitimacy of the main Methods, but also non-democratic countries in transition towards a democratic system of government an important mechanism, and voting is the most popular political participation of citizens, the most common, is also close to the general public most likely a form of participation. The study use the visit information of Taiwan elections and democratization investigation in 2006 that relating to Kaohsiung Mayor election survey data, in order to investigate factors influencing the choice of the voters from the social psychology study ways to survey the Michigan Model in party Identification, candidate evaluation, campaign issues and other variables in the voting model of the importance. Finally, we attempt to identify influencing the choice of Kaohsiung people to vote deciding factor. This study showed that, the five social background of voters (including the gender, age, ethnic group, educational level, families income) and party Identification, candidate evaluation, campaign issues, ethnic identity, these five variables and four intermediate variables were significantly associated. Particularly, the ethnic identity is a very important effect and these four intermediary variables also have very significant influence for choice of the voters voting. Polynomial logistic regression was used to establish the simple and complete model in order to check variables and intermediary variables between the relations of voter choice. In simple model was found that party Identification, the five candidate evaluation and the three campaign issues affect the voters choice definitely, especially the party Identification, the relatively reliable in the candidate evaluation and the remedial for the Love River, the completion of Singuang Ferry Wharf in the campaign issues, but to understand that ethnic identity with regard to the voters intention was not significant affects. In complete model showed that the nine variables (including the age, ethnic group, educational level, families income and the party identification, more ability to work, to understand that the people demand, relatively reliable, the most enthusiastic service to the people, remedial for the Love River, the completion of Singuang Ferry Wharf and the incident of walking fees) affect the voting choice of the voters. In particular, age, party identification, have more ability to work, relatively reliable, remedial for the Love River, the completion of Singuang Ferry Wharf were the most important explanatory variables and have significant relevance to the election with the support of the mayor candidates. Party Identification, candidate evaluation, campaign issues, and the ethnic identity of these four variables is a pretty good model that ability to explain the voting behavior. Key words: Voting choice, Party Identification, Candidate evaluation, Campaign issues, Ethnic identity

Shipping is a fragmented, global industry operating in a culturally diverse environment. As a result of rising maritime accident rates and pollution incidents in the 1970s and 1980s, the International Maritime Organisation introduced two conventions that entered fully into force in 2002: the International Management Code for the Safe Operation of Ships and Pollution Prevention (ISM Code), and the 1995 revision of the 1978 Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW Code). Introduction of the conventions served to focus the attention of the international maritime community on the need to raise industry-wide safety standards, but questions were raised about whether it was possible to develop a safety culture in a fragmented, global industry and what effects the diversity of cultures might have upon implementation of the ISM Code. This study explores those questions. Subsequent to a review of the literature, a model of the working of the ISM Code is developed and used to identify the constraints and pressures, particularly those that might be influenced by cultural values and attitudes, that impact upon the development and implementation of a Safety Management System in individual shipping organisations, which is the essence of the ISM Code. A comparative case study methodology is adopted for the empirical research and a number of investigative techniques are used to test the ISM Code model and obtain both qualitative and quantitative data to determine whether the impact of culturally influenced constraints and pressures would be best addressed by stricter enforcement of existing regulatory provisions or greater emphasis on education and training. From analysis of the data collected, the study concluded that: • Professional, vocational and safety training correctly utilised are effective in harmonising culturally influenced safety perspectives, thus improving safety performance; and • Culturally influenced constraints and pressures can be dealt with by the application of standard management techniques which, in a multi-cultural environment requires good cross-cultural management skills. The most common method of determining how effective a company has been in dealing with the various constraints and pressures affecting safety performance is to evaluate the efficacy of the organisation's Safety Management System by analysis of accident records, lost time incidents and hazardous occurrences (ACNSI, 1993). These data, reported under the provisions of Clause 9 of the ISM Code, are therefore analysed and compared with an industry sector benchmark. The study however, goes beyond such a purely quantitative approach and establishes the relative safety climate of the case study companies by means of perceptual audit of salient, safety-related factors. This qualitative technique draws together all the main research elements of the study and a Safety Climate Comparator is developed that provides a useful indicator of the relative status of those culturally influenced factors that ultimately affect a company's safety performance. By extension, the technique may be used to provide a Relative Safety Culture Maturity Model to measure the safety climate of other shipping companies relative to a benchmark standard.

Information security is one of the major challenges for organizations that critically depend on information systems to conduct their businesses. Ensuring safety of information and technology resources has become the top priority for many organizations since the consequences of failure can be devastating. Many organizations recognize that their employees, who are often considered as the weakest link in information security, can be a great resource as well to fight against information security-related risks. The key, however, is to ensure that employees comply with information security related rules and regulations of the organization. Therefore, understanding of compliance behavior of an employee is crucial for organizations to effectively leverage their human capital to strengthen their information security. This research aims at identifying antecedences of an employee’s compliance with the information security policy (ISP) of his/her organization. Specifically, we address how employees without any malicious intent choose to comply with requirements of the ISP with regards to protecting the information and technology resources of their organizations. Drawing on the Theory of Planned Behavior, we show an employee’s attitude towards compliance results in his/her intention to comply with the ISP. Of those, Benefit of Compliance and Cost of Non-Compliance are shown to be shaped by positive and negative reinforcing factors; such as, Intrinsic Benefit, Safety of Resources, Rewards and Intrinsic Cost, Vulnerability of Resources, and Sanctions, respectively. We also investigate the role of information security awareness on an employee’s ISP compliance behavior. As expected, we show that information security awareness positively influences attitude towards compliance. We also show that information security awareness positively influences the perception of reinforcing factors and negatively increases perception of the Cost of Compliance. As organizations strive to get their employees to follow their information security rules and regulations, our study sheds light on the role of an employee’s information security awareness and his/her beliefs about the rationality of compliance and non-compliance with the ISP.

Objectives: 1. To determine the proportion of people reporting time loss from work, school, or normal activities due to oral health issues. 2. To determine how much time is being lost. 3. To establish predictors of this time loss. 4. To determine the productivity losses. Methods: Data from the Canadian Health Measures Survey (2007-2009) were used. Linear and logistic regressions were employed to determine which variables were predictive of hours lost and reporting time loss. Productivity losses were determined using the lost wages approach. Results: Time loss is more likely among privately insured, high income earners. Experiencing oral pain is the best predictor of reporting time loss. Productivity losses are comparable to those of some musculoskeletal conditions. Conclusions: Participants with higher incomes report time loss more frequently while the total amount of time lost is greatest for those with the lowest incomes. Productivity losses are substantial at the societal level.