Customer satisfaction is a key concern in any business strategy. It is often assumed that customer satisfaction can be enhanced using e-services. E-service is defined as interactive service received via the Internet (Jiang et al., 2013). E-service has contributed to business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce by providing on-demand solutions to customers. The relationship with the customer is enhanced by introducing self-service options, product customisation and variety. However, there may also be negative impacts, such as techno-stress and lack of online customer assistance. The primary aim of this research was to develop a conceptual framework to describe the correlation relationship between the factors that influence customers’ adoption of e-services. Organisations use the Internet to attract customers, to conduct financial services and obtain information. This research focussed specifically on online shopping. The Grounded Theory research methodology was chosen for its flexibility and iterative comparison of data. A quantitative survey was conducted to determine the relative significance of the factors uncovered by the Grounded Theory methodology and to validate the hypothesis of the conceptual model. Customer adoption is attained where customer satisfaction is high, where the customer sees value in the service, and where there is customer loyalty or trust. To date, research has focussed primarily on developed countries. Many challenges face South Africa as a Newly Industrialised Country (NIC). The negative factors facing developing countries in terms of e-service adoption include: lack of infrastructure, economic constraints and an emergent socio-political framework. The aim of this research was to build a conceptual model for explaining interrelationships between the identified factors that have an impact on customer e-service adoption. The customer’s perception of technology-driven services affects the organisation’s reputation, which in turn affects profitability. This research will be beneficial to ii managers in local organisations that thrive on e-services. An understanding of customer preferences will lead to improvement of customer services in South Africa. / Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Art History)

A presente investigação tem por objeto de estudo o romance El hombre que amaba a los perros (2009), de autoria do cubano Leonardo Padura. Em uma análise formal de tal obra, a pesquisa debruça-se sobre a posição de seus narradores, sobre a construção de seus personagens e sobre a estruturação de seu enredo, compreendendo seu funcionamento literário enquanto sintoma cultural da sociedade de consumo contemporânea. Assim, discute-se o pastiche da literatura policial noir engendrado pelo autor, bem como suas maneiras não realistas de figurar a história, situando o livro em meio ao panorama estético e ideológico da pós-modernidade. Com isso, busca-se esclarecer a relação dialética que se estabelece entre a forma narrativa do romance e o atual processo de transição histórica vivenciado por Cuba o qual conduz a ilha à integração ao sistema mundial do capitalismo tardio. / The current research aims to study the novel The man who loved the dogs (2009), by Cuban writer Leonardo Padura. In a formal approach to such work, the research focuses on the position of its narrators, on the construction of its characters and on the structure of its plot, understanding its literary functioning as a cultural symptom of contemporary consume society. Thus, the pastiche of noir crime fiction engendered by the author is put into discussion, as well as its non-realistic ways to figure history, in order to place the book amid the aesthetic and ideological panorama of postmodernity. Therefore, it intends to clarify the dialectical relationship established between the narrative form of the novel and the current historical transition process experienced by Cuba - which leads the island to integrate itself to late capitalism world system.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:28:18Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2004-09-28Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:47:55Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 silva_mrl_me_mar.pdf: 224047 bytes, checksum: c3ca984febc47416acb632ac3444f717 (MD5) / O presente trabalho problematiza o papel atribuído pela tendência marxista em Filosofia da Educação no Brasil ao pensamento educacional neotomista. Utilizando-se da hermenêutica de Gadamer, realiza-se movimento de aproximação e distanciamento das principais idéias educacionais católicas disseminadas por periódicos nos anos trinta. Procura-se distinguir um pensador, Leonardo Van Acker, como um teórico que tenta dialogar criticamente com o mundo e o pensamento modernos; demonstra-se como, neste diálogo, aproxima-se do pensamento pragmático de Dewey. Ao final, discute-se o elemento de criticidade presente no pensamento de Van Acker, para tanto, realiza-se um contraponto com o pensamento crítico de Horkheimer. / This essay inquires about how the marxist tendency in Philosophy of Education in Brazil understand de neotomist educational thinking. With the Gadamer's hermeneutic, it realizes a movement of aproximation and distancing of mean catolic educational thinking publiched in papers and magazines on the therties. Leonardo Van Acker is detached as a thinker who tries to dialogue criticaly about the modern world and modern thinking. At this dialogue, his ideas is next to the Dewey pragmatic thinking. As conclusion, it inquires about the critical elements presentes in Van Acker and compares him with the Horkheimer critical thinking.

A presente investigação tem por objeto de estudo o romance El hombre que amaba a los perros (2009), de autoria do cubano Leonardo Padura. Em uma análise formal de tal obra, a pesquisa debruça-se sobre a posição de seus narradores, sobre a construção de seus personagens e sobre a estruturação de seu enredo, compreendendo seu funcionamento literário enquanto sintoma cultural da sociedade de consumo contemporânea. Assim, discute-se o pastiche da literatura policial noir engendrado pelo autor, bem como suas maneiras não realistas de figurar a história, situando o livro em meio ao panorama estético e ideológico da pós-modernidade. Com isso, busca-se esclarecer a relação dialética que se estabelece entre a forma narrativa do romance e o atual processo de transição histórica vivenciado por Cuba o qual conduz a ilha à integração ao sistema mundial do capitalismo tardio. / The current research aims to study the novel The man who loved the dogs (2009), by Cuban writer Leonardo Padura. In a formal approach to such work, the research focuses on the position of its narrators, on the construction of its characters and on the structure of its plot, understanding its literary functioning as a cultural symptom of contemporary consume society. Thus, the pastiche of noir crime fiction engendered by the author is put into discussion, as well as its non-realistic ways to figure history, in order to place the book amid the aesthetic and ideological panorama of postmodernity. Therefore, it intends to clarify the dialectical relationship established between the narrative form of the novel and the current historical transition process experienced by Cuba - which leads the island to integrate itself to late capitalism world system.

I följande uppsats så analyseras alternativa och ofta uppseendeväckande tolkningar av kända konstverk, närmare bestämt interpretationer som menar sig peka på dolda budskap från konstnären. Bildtolkningarna granskas i ljuset av spårsökande paradigm samt det skelett som utgör konspirationsteorier. Konspirationsteorier handlar ofta om makt och politik, men det hindrar inte att strukturen som upprätthåller dessa teorier kan sprida sig till och florera även inom andra ämnen. Undersökningen analyserar vad som händer med bildtolkningarna när de sätts i relation till teorier om konspirationsteorier. Resultatet visar att bildtolkningarna i hög grad är formulerade som samt bygger upp sin bevisning i enlighet med konspirationsteorier, och det spårsökande paradigmet är ständigt närvarande med ett fokus på detaljer för att bättre förstå helheten.

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LA VITA DI DANTE DI LEONARDO BRUNI: EDIZIONE CRITICA E COMMENTO Il lavoro è stato strutturato e realizzato così da dare alla luce l’edizione critica della Vita di Dante, che Leonardo Bruni scrisse nel 1436 assieme a quella del Petrarca, sul modello delle Vite di Plutarco. Le due biografie sono state tramandate nei secoli soprattutto insieme, come un’unica opera, ma hanno conosciuto pure una circolazione indipendente, nella tradizione manoscritta e in quella a stampa; ciò perché entrambe le Vite sono di per sé organismi indipendenti, dotati di propria autonomia, che, inseriti tra un Proemio generale e un Parallelo tra i due poeti, vengono ad assumere un aspetto unitario. Tale situazione di partenza ha consentito di poter lavorare anche solo sulla biografia dantesca, potendo approdare a risultati inediti e decisivi, rimandando l’edizione della Vita petrarchesca ad altra sede. Dall’editio princeps (1671) in poi, le Vite sono state pubblicate più volte nel corso dei secoli, ma sempre senza che venisse posta sotto vaglio critico la tradizione del testo, nella sua complessità e ricchezza di testimonianze. Questa edizione critica della Vita di Dante, dunque, ha il fine aprire l’accesso al testo bruniano in una modalità tutta nuova, basata su principi ecdotici, nella volontà di restituire la lezione genuina e il più vicino possibile all’originale. Per fare ciò sono stati sottoposti a recensio tutti i codici della Vita di Dante oggi conosciuti, a partire dal Repertorium Brunianum di James Hankins e da lì sviluppando la ricerca, con l’approdo a nuovi dati. Una volta recensita la tradizione è stato possibile costruire lo stemma codicum, in base agli errori evidenti, fino alla redazione del testo critico, dotato di apparato. Trattandosi di un’opera piuttosto attraente, non solo per il piglio critico con cui il Bruni “storico” la concepisce e realizza, ma anche per le numerose informazioni che ci dà, anche inedite, circa la vita del poeta e i fatti fiorentini a lui contemporanei, questa biografia dantesca è stata corredata anche di un commento, finora mai realizzato, così da approfondirne la lettura e sollecitare nuove riflessioni sul testo. Per fornire un’istantanea della tradizione che, “dialogando” con lo stemma, mettesse in luce i legami tra i codici, anche dal punto di vista contenutistico, è stata, infine, realizzata anche una sezione descrittiva dei testimoni recensiti, grazie ai dati reperiti nei cataloghi, nei repertori e in altre opere rilevanti, nonché aggiungendo una serie di informazioni che provengono da un’osservazione diretta degli esemplari. / This work is the critical edition of Life of Dante, written by Leonardo Bruni in Florence in the may of 1436, with the Life of Petrarch as like a Plutarch's lives (Vite Parallele). Every life is an independent text, being together, at the same time, an unitary work, because the have a "Proemio" and a "Parallelo between Dante and Petrarch" which are like a frame for all the work. This is the first critical edition of brunian Dante's Life: the text has been edited more times from the editio princeps (1671), but never including an analysis of all the manuscripts. This critical edition is equipped with a commentary, the first has been published. At last, the work show all descriptions of the manuscripts.

This dissertation examines the presence of postmodern episteme in the Spanish American narrative discourse at the threshold of the 21st century with an emphasis on three writers: Carlos Fuentes Macias, Mario Vargas Llosa and Leonardo Padura Fuentes. Those authors are representative figures of this literary period in different regions, and they have written novels considered by the critique as postmodern. In their novels, this episteme is present in particular characteristics from this aesthetic and literary period, mostly the theoretical principles of Jean Francois Lyotard, Fredric Jameson, Jean Baudrillard, Umberto Eco, Michael Foucault, Paul Ricoeur, Brian McHale, Nicholas Zurbrugg, Ihab Hassan, Linda Hutcheon, Raymond Williams and Seymour Menton. All of these postmodern theories are reflected in the strategies and mechanisms used by these leading Latin American narrators and in the meaning that is conveyed through the novelistic discourse and how they point to the philosophical, aesthetical, and pragmatic cosmovision from this period. Chapter I functions as a theoretical approach to characteristics of Modernity, Postmodernity and their literary implications. Therefore, this study offers an outlook about what Postmodernity is from the sociological and anthropological points of view; what their key characteristics are; who the fundamental theorists are both in the international and Spanish American context; how Postmodernist‘s influence on art postulates a new aesthetic paradigm: the postmodern; and what formal, thematic and hermeneutic changes it has generated in the narrative genre. Finally, a critique and a personal stance in this polemic are offered. Chapters II, III and IV examine specifically the strategies and mechanisms used by these authors -Carlos Fuentes Macias, Mario Vargas Llosa and Leonardo Padura- to construct the postmodern narrative discourse in their respective novels -La silla del Águila, for Fuentes; La fiesta del chivo, for Vargas Llosa; and La novela de mi vida, for Padura-. These chapters disclose the presence of this episteme in the above mentioned works. The epilog concludes this study by pointing out the common characteristics of postmodernity present in each novel, and, in more general terms, the characteristics of this major Spanish American literary period in the narrative.

La traducción en el siglo XV establece una tercera vía: traducir un texto del latín o del griego "ad sententiam", segun su significado; alternativa a los dos "modi" medievales, que son la traducción "ad verbum" o literal, y la traducción "ad sensum", segun su sentido. La traducción del significado incluye la comprensión histórica y los aspectos formales y estilísticos del texto, fundamentos hermenéuticos esenciales para su correcta comprensión. Un primer paso de esta concepción moderna de la traducción se da en traductores que corrigen textos anteriores, como F. Alegre en las "Transformacions" (1494) de P. Ovidio, influido por las tesis de L. Bruni i por la poética neoplatónica. En su traducción "La primera guerra púnica" (1472), traduida del italiano, el barcelonés se situa al margen de estas inovaciones y se mantiene en el binomio "verbum-sensum" por la naturaleza escolar e iniciática de este ejercicio.

Thesis (M.A.)--Abilene Christian University, 2005. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 139-156).