A qualitative descriptive approach was undertaken to explore the leadership experience of seven first line nurse managers working in the Cook Islands. For the purposes of this study first line nurse managers are those nurses working as a charge nurse in a hospital, nursing supervisors, chief public health nurse, and nurses working autonomously in the outer islands of the Cook Islands. Nurses in these roles are in key positions to influence the practice of others and set the standard of practice and culture of a unit. The participants were recruited if they were currently employed in any of these positions. The seven participants were all Cook Islands women who received their undergraduate nursing education in the Cook Islands. The purpose of the study was to describe their leadership experience, to raise an awareness of their role, and to make recommendations to support and improve the preparation of nurses for leadership roles in the Cook Islands. Through face-to-face interviews, the participants' stories were audio taped and transcribed verbatim. Six of the seven transcripts required translation from Cook Islands Maori to English and this was conducted by the researcher who is fluent in both languages. Content and thematic analysis of the data revealed a spiritual, emotive and intuitive theme in the participants' leadership experience. The findings of the study revealed the self confidence of these nurses to manage in this role despite being challenged by management issues and the lack of preparedness for the role. The supportive network established within their staff, their family and the people around them has provided the impetus to continue to 'serve' their people. The findings also revealed that these nurses recognised the need to continue to learn and develop themselves and their staff. The findings of this study have significance for nurses aspiring to be nurse leaders in the Cook Islands or other Pacific Islands and rural communities. A key stakeholder in this study is the Cook Islands Ministry of Health, as insights and awareness gained can contribute to an appropriate preparation and support programme for nurses working in its organisation.

Numerous works and conclusions of founders of the theory of a human capital come to conclusion that people enhance the capabilities of producers and consumers by means of investment in themselves. The most important types of investments in the person usually consider education, preparation on production. As a rule, at each enterprise there is a system of employee development which task includes improvement of quality of a manpower. / Многочисленные работы и выводы основоположников теории человеческого капитала приходят к заключению, что люди совершенствуют свои способности производителей и потребителей при помощи инвестирования в самих себя. Важнейшими видами вложений в человека обычно считают образование, подготовку на производстве. Как правило, на каждом предприятии есть система развития кадров, в задачу которой входит повышение качества трудовых ресурсов.

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From 1959 -1964, the Prince Edward County, VA School Board closed down its public schools to circumvent the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling declaring separate public schools for Black and White students "inherently unequal" and the 1955 Brown II ruling to desegregate public schools with "all deliberate speed." For five years, more than 1700 African American children received no public education in the county, as White children attended a newly-constructed and private Prince Edward Academy. While some students left Prince Edward to reside with relatives, others were placed with families by the American Friends Service Committee. However, the majority of Black children remained in the county without formalized public instruction. This study investigated the perceived impact of The Closing on adult self-directed learning, lifelong learning, occupational choices and success within a family with sixteen of its twenty-one children forced from school. Via audio-/video-taped interviews, three participants reflected upon their "lived experiences" during and since The Closing. Transcribed data were coded and analyzed based upon the major and underlying research questions guiding the study. Nine major conclusions were drawn from its findings: (a) The Closing perceivably impacted immediate educational goals of participants differently, (b) The Closing perceivably impacted specific and general long-range educational goals, (c) Participants have pursued educational goals via supportive spouses/family members and adult self-directed/lifelong learning measures, (d) Following the re-opening of schools, all respondents graduated high school, and two later enrolled in academic learning centers, (e) Self-directed learning has played an essential role in the lives of all participants, (f) All participants considered themselves life-long learners, (g) The Closing perceivably impacted the career plans of one participant, (h) Respondents acquired manufacturing and/or labor positions and were successfully employed throughout their adult lives, (i) Literacy assistance from family members, self-directed learning, on-the-job training and formalized coursework were perceived as having had a positive bearing on occupational success. The implications of this study suggested resiliency, family dynamics, family values, and narratological significance. Study participants, driven to live productive and successful lives, appeared to have emulated Adult Learning Theory tenets of self-directed, lifelong quests for formally-delivered and informally-acquired knowledge. Recommendations emerging from this study included investigations of School Closing survivors' motivations for adult learning, the role of faith in Closing survivors' lives, The Closing's perceived impact on the Next Generation, ancestral discourse, male birth order relationships, 1951 strikers' guilt, education vs. vocation and growth under adversity. / Ph. D.

No / Japan's model of corporations has conventionally been regarded as comparatively 'society-friendly' because of such features as its corporate governance, close co-ordination with government economic policy and life-long employment. Yet this 'solidaristic' image has been unsettled by, for example, environmental failures and workplace pathologies. The paper investigates the extent and character of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Japan through analysis of CSR reporting on home websites of the top So Japanese corporations and compares this with other studies of Japanese CSR. It finds a marked growth and consolidation of CSR, particularly in environmental responsibility and, though to a lesser extent, community involvement. The paper identifies and evaluates the impacts of key CSR drivers: the developing Japanese model of business and society; government policy; and the effects of internationalisation of business.

This thesis presents novel solutions for two fundamental problems associated with autonomous road driving. The first is accurate and persistent localisation and the second is automatic extrinsic sensor calibration. We start by describing a stereo Visual Odometry (VO) system, which forms the basis of later chapters. This sparse approach to ego-motion estimation leverages the efficacy and speed of the BRIEF descriptor to measure frame-to-frame correspondences and infer subsequent motion. The system is able to output locally metric trajectory estimates as demonstrated on many kilometres of data. We then present a robust vision only localisation system based on a two-stage approach. Firstly we gather a representative survey in ideal weather and lighting conditions. We then leverage locally accurate VO trajectories to synthesise a high resolution orthographic image strip of the road surface. This road image provides a highly descriptive and stable template against which to match subsequent traversals. During the second phase, localisation, we use the VO to provide high frequency pose updates, but correct for the drift inherent in all locally derived pose estimates with low frequency updates from a dense image matching technique. Here a live image stream is registered against synthesised views of the road image generated form the survey. We use an information theoretic measure, Mutual Information, to determine the alignment of live images and synthesised views. Using this measure we are able to successfully localise subsequent traversals of surveyed routes under even the most intense lighting changes expected in outdoor applications. We demonstrate our system localising in multiple environments with accuracy commensurate to that of an Inertial Navigation System. Finally we present a technique for automatically determining the extrinsic calibration between a camera and Light Detection And Ranging (LIDAR) sensor in natural scenes. Rather than requiring a stationary platform as with prior art, we actually exploit platform motion allowing us to aggregate data and adopt a retrospective approach to calibration. Coupled with accurate timing this retrospective approach allows for sensors with non-overlapping fields of view to be calibrated as long as at some point the observed workspaces overlap. We then show how we can improve the accuracy of our calibration estimates by treating each single shot estimate as a noisy measurement and fusing them together using a recursive Bayes filter. We evaluate the calibration algorithm in multiple environments and demonstrate millimetre precision in translation and deci-degrees in rotation.

This thesis explores the development of public policy aimed at achieving adult life-long participation in sport in Australia, Finland and New Zealand. Adult life-long participation has frequently been claimed as an aspiration of sport policy in Australia, Finland and New Zealand. This study identifies the characteristics of the sport systems and sport policy process in each of the three countries and outlines the development of policy concerning participation in sport amongst adults. A case study approach was adopted focusing on each of the three countries in turn. Adopting a qualitative methodology the study utilised document analysis and semi-structured interviews to elicit data regarding the development of, and factors impacting upon, the development of sport for all. Focusing upon the meso-level of analysis, policy networks was found to be a useful lens through which to view Finland, drawing attention to a policy subsystem where there has been a consistent focus on sport for all over the last 40 years. The advocacy coalition framework (ACF) provided the greatest utility for providing insights into Australia and New Zealand. The ACF drew attention to competing coalitions within the New Zealand and Australian sport sub-systems highlighting the tensions that had surfaced between elite and mass sport development. Despite little evidence in Australia, Finland or New Zealand of a policy or strategy that could be 'pulled off the shelf and called adult life long participation the findings indicated that Finland has been able to achieve high levels of adult participation in sport. Over the last 40 years successive Finnish governments have been consistent in their approach with regard to the role of national and local government in promoting Sf A. In contrast the Australian federal government has consistently expressed a desire to increase levels of sport participation amongst all Australians, however, despite consistent exhortations policy implementation has failed to reflect the rhetoric. Recent changes to the New Zealand sport policy landscape have made identifying a clear sport development pathway difficult, however, grassroots sport appears to have remained outside the current public policy focus. This study concludes that despite the existence of broadly similar factors such as rising levels of obesity, declining levels of physical activity and continued aspirations for sporting success, quite different sport policy approaches have been adopted in each of the three countries. This draws attention to the role of domestic factors, such as the distinctive socio-economic political and cultural systems in shaping the direction of, and salience of, sport policy to government.

A presente pesquisa tem por foco um processo de formação contínua de docentes da rede pública estadual da região de Carapicuíba e Cotia com o uso do portfólio, enquanto recurso para a formação do professor reflexivo. Em uma pesquisa de campo realizada pela Oficina Pedagógica da Diretoria de Ensino de Carapicuíba, São Paulo, sobre as formas de registro e avaliação; constatamos que: professores de diferentes disciplinas do currículo do Ensino Fundamental e Médio realizavam portfólios de forma espontânea, para conhecer o repertório cultural e educacional dos discentes. Este fato chamou-nos atenção e procuramos estabelecer os primeiros contatos com esses educadores, a fim de identificar os tipos de portfólio que construíam, se possuíam conhecimento teórico a cerca desta prática e o que ainda poderiam conhecer a respeito do potencial deste material e o seu uso para a pesquisa e reflexão em relação ao ensino-aprendizagem. Ao longo do processo de formação contínua o portfólio foi apresentado como ferramenta de pesquisa-ensino, ao qual se acrescentou o blog, para resolver imprevistos do percurso. Tínhamos por meta verificar o desenvolvimento do processo reflexivo do professor sobre suas práticas a partir do uso das referidas ferramentas e averiguar a ocorrência de transformações das metodologias de ensino, bem como a produção de conhecimento na escola. Para operacionalização, deste projeto, realizamos um ciclo de cursos de formação contínua para esclarecermos as tendências atuais e o uso do portfólio e a formação do professor reflexivo. A coleta de dados compreendeu o período de 2007 a 2009. Acompanhamos, em três escolas do Ensino Fundamental, a prática docente de 15 professores das seguintes disciplinas: Língua Portuguesa, História, Geografia, Arte e Educação Física para entendermos as formas como foram compiladas, colecionadas, comentadas e apresentadas as evidências do ensino e da aprendizagem por intermédio do registro docente. Nessa abordagem temos por suporte teórico os autores a seguir: John Dewey (1965), Donald Schon (1983, 2000), Antonio Nóvoa (1997), Isabel Alarcão (2005), Fernando Hernandez (2000), Idália de Sá-Chaves (2000, 2005), Selma Garrido, Evandro Ghedin (2002), Elsa Garrido (2000, 2010), Heloisa Dupas Penteado (2008, 2010), entre outros. Constatamos a introdução à prática reflexiva a partir da formação disponibilizada. / This research focuses on a process of continuous training of teachers from public schools in the region of Carapicuíba and Cotia using the portfolio as a resource for the education of reflective teachers. In a field survey conducted by the Bureau of Educational Board of Education from Carapicuíba, São Paulo, on ways of recording and evaluation showed that: teachers of different subjects in the curriculum of elementary and high school portfolios performed spontaneously, to knowing the cultural background and education of students. This fact called our attention and we seek to establish the first contacts with these educators to identify which types of portfolio they built, if they had theoretical knowledge about this practice and what they could still know about the potential of this material and its use for research and reflection on teaching and learning. Throughout the process of training the portfolio was presented as a tool for research and teaching, which added the blog to solve the unexpected route. We aim to check the development of the teacher\'s reflective about their practice from the use of these tools and to investigate the occurrence of transformations of teaching methodologies, as well as the production of knowledge in school. For the operationalization of this project, we conducted a series of training courses to clarify current trends in the use of portfolio and reflective teacher education. Data collection included the period from 2007 to 2009. We followed, in three schools of basic education, the teaching practice of 15 teachers of the following subjects: Portuguese Language, History, Geography, Art and Physical Education for understanding the ways in which they were compiled, collected, explained and presented the evidences of teaching and learning through the teacher registration. In this approach we have theoretical support for the following authors: John Dewey (1965), Donald Schon (1983, 2000), Antonio Nóvoa (1997), Isabel Alarcão (2005), Fernando Hernandez (2000), Idália de Sá-Chaves (2000, 2005), Selma Garrido, Evandro Ghedin (2002), Elsa Garrido (2000, 2010), Heloisa Dupas Penteado (2008, 2010), among others. We found out the introduction to reflective practice from the training offered.

The thesis is focused on the possibilities in the management of the intergenerational programmes. The aim of the thesis is to analyze the issue of intergenerational learning from the point of view of the management of educational institutions and to create a proposal of methodology for intergenerational programs management. The first part discusses the management in general, educational management and the characterization and classification of educational institutions and the scope of non-profit organizations. It also deals with lifelong learning and defines intergenerational learning as one of its forms. It deals with the categorization of intergenerational learning and the definition of its linkage in formal, non-formal and informal learning. The work defines the concept of age management, describes its implementation in practice and focuses on the topic of intergenerational programs, their specification, categorization and definition of their benefits and risks. The second part is focused on the content analysis of strategic and curricular documents in the Czech Republic and abroad and analyses the possibilities of cooperation of educational institutions in intergenerational programs in the Czech Republic and foreign countries. It summarizes the benefits of intergenerational programs and presents...

This bachelor thesis examines the PC-game Europa Universalis IV and its potential as a learning tool to develop players historical consciousness. The thesis also researches and compares Europa Universalis IV:s historical content and use of history to what is characteristic of popular history. The results show that the game’s potential for developing historical consciousness lies in its contrafactual use of historical content, but because of its high abstraction of history and historical aspects the potentials are limited and problematic to evaluate. The analysis of uses of history in Europa Universalis IV shows that the game’s historical presentation is mostly exemplary and commercial.