Lai, Yuen Shan Elise. / "September 2011." / Thesis (M.F.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 50-52). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Everyday life aesthetics / Chapter ´Ø --- Aesthetics experience in everyday life / Chapter ´Ø --- Limitation ´ؤ few and far between / Chapter ´Ø --- Autonomous aesthetics experience in everyday / Chapter - --- "our opinion, decision or engage in an action." / Chapter ´Ø --- The neglected in everyday life / Chapter : --- Luc Tuymans / Chapter : --- Chu Yun / Critique of everyday life / Chapter ´Ø --- "The central concept of le quotidien, the everyday." / Chapter ´Ø --- Everydayness ´ؤ The concept of alienation and mystification. / Chapter ´Ø --- Distant intimacy of everyday life / Chapter : --- Moments / Chapter : --- Chu Yun - Who Has Stolen Our Bodies (2002) / Chapter : --- Jiri Kovanda - actions / Chapter : --- Stephen Shore - Uncommon Places (1973-1981) / Chapter ´Ø --- The 'individual' and 'public change' / About Space and Lived Space / Chapter ´Ø --- Space as a medium / Chapter ´Ø --- The system of space / Chapter : --- Martha Rosier - The Bowery in two inadequate descriptive system (1974-1975) / Chapter ´Ø --- The Lived Space and the hotel / Chapter : --- Sophie Calle - L'Hotel (1981) / The domain of ( ) / Chapter ´Ø --- Strategies / Chapter ´Ø --- Tactics / Chapter ´Ø --- The practice of everyday life / Chapter : --- Reading / Chapter : --- Re-appropriation and end of procedure of creativity / Chapter : --- Jiri Kovanda-I hide (1977) / Chapter : --- "Francis Aly ´ؤ Zocalo, (May 20, 1999)" / Leisure in everyday life / Chapter ´Ø --- Leisure (and work) / Chapter ´Ø --- Leisure - a break / Chapter ´Ø --- The paradox of leisure time / Chapter ´Ø --- Oeuvres / Chapter ´Ø --- Painter as a day-to-day worker / Chapter : --- David Hockney - paintings of the trivia / Chapter : --- Martin Kippenberger - hotel paper drawing as an artistic biography / Conclusion: Travelling: the alternation of everyday life due to the change of time and space / Chapter ´Ø --- Change of the mode of living / Chapter ´Ø --- The journey of the change of time and space / Chapter : --- The airport / Chapter : --- The airplane - as if time has frozen / Chapter ´Ø --- The travelling time / Chapter : --- "Special experience, strangeness, distancing" / Chapter : --- Hotel as a lived space / Chapter : --- "Space: use of space, special owned experience." / Chapter : --- Time: Timeless time / Chapter ´Ø --- "Some leisure, treasures and pleasures" / Bibliography

Orientador: Leandro Eugênio da Silva Cerri / Banca: José Bueno Conti / Banca: Antonio Manoel dos Santos Oliveira / Banca: Maria Inez Pagani / Banca: Fábio Augusto Gomes Vieira Reis / Resumo: Adotando a premissa básica de que a sociedade depende, para o seu bem estar, de bons indicadores relacionados aos fatores ambientais em seu sentido amplo, esta Tese analisa o significado dos termos qualidade ambiental e qualidade de vida sob o ponto de vista das Geociências e da ciência ambiental e propõe um novo índice que busca contemplar tais fatores de um modo mais abrangente, integrado e representativo da realidade. Para isto, discute o processo de formação da idéia sobre qualidade ambiental de vida, balizando-se em conceitos oferecidos por diversos estudiosos das questões que nela se incluem e destaca os principais indicadores que servem de parâmetros para a qualificação ambiental da vida, seu objeto precípuo, culminando na definição do Índice de Qualidade Ambiental de Vida IQAV, que pretende refletir a real situação dos locais objetos de sua aplicação. A Tese destaca o papel do adensamento humano como fator de queda da qualidade ambiental de vida, uma regra para todo lugar onde se pretenda aplicar este índice, e a necessidade de desenvolvimento de novas pesquisas nas áreas das Geociências e das Biociências para a efetiva aplicabilidade do índice proposto de um modo ideal. / Abstract: Adopting the basic premise that the well-being of society depends on positive indicators related to environmental factors in the broadest sense, this Thesis analyzes the significance of the terms environmental quality and quality of life from the perspective of the Geosciences and environmental science, and proposes a new index which seeks to take into consideration such factors in a more comprehensive fashion, integrated with and representative of reality. With this in mind, it discusses the process of the formation of the concept of environmental quality of life, with reference to concepts offered by various researchers into such questions, and focuses on the principal indicators which serve as parameters for environmental qualifications of life, its primary objective, culminating in the definition of an Index for Environmental Quality of Life IEQL (Indice de Qualidade Ambiental de Vida IQAV), which intends to reflect the actual situation in each local regarded as a focus of its application. The Thesis emphasizes the role of population density as a factor in the loss of environmental quality of life, a constant for each local where the Index might be applied, and the necessity for the development of additional research in the areas of Geoscience and Bioscience for the effective application of the Index as proposed in an ideal manner. / Doutor

Blackcurrant (Ribes nigrum L.) is a perennial shrub grown for its black piquant berries, rich in a variety of nutrients, phytochemicals and antioxidants. Blackcurrants are commercially grown in 21 countries mainly across temperate zones of Europe, Russia, and New Zealand and to a lesser extent North America. The berries can be harvested by hand and consumed raw, however the main market lies within the mechanically harvested crop used for processing. Demand for juices, and fruit juices in particular, continues to rise mainly due to increasing consumer awareness of the health benefits of a balanced diet. The rich nutritional content of blackcurrant makes it a desired commodity for production of juice and other innovative products. Breeding of new blackcurrant cultivars is dominated by the processing industry and the emphasis in recent years has been to increase the nutritional value of the crop. New berry fruit cultivars in the UK have recently focused more on fruit quality traits than agronomic characters (Brennan and Graham, 2009), and the main quality traits of blackcurrant have been associated with antioxidant, colour and flavour properties. Quality-focused breeding is challenging due to long timescales and low precision as quality traits are complex, show continuous variation, polygenic control, genes of small effects and strong influence by the growing environment; additionally, blackcurrant is a minor crop with no reference genome and existing sequence annotation is based on homology to Arabidopsis. In this study high throughput phenotyping, and metabolome and transcriptome profiling analysis contributed to a comprehensive overview of blackcurrant physiology and regulation during fruit development. Combination of a novel correlation platform and database mining of metabolite and transcript abundances contributed to identification of genes associated with anthocyanin content in blackcurrant and provided functional gene annotation for Ribes sp. Sixty three genes were identified as having major roles in blackcurrant anthocyanin accumulation with putative functions of catalytic proteins, transporters and regulatory proteins; a number of cytochrome P450 family proteins were also implicated. Moreover, a range of proteins with unknown functions in Arabidopsis were shown to correlate strongly with flavonoid accumulation in blackcurrant. The developed approach for functional gene orthology annotation (genes with similar functions) can also be utilised for several other (~200) traits analysed in this study and can provide a functional systems biology platform for other woody perennial species with no reference genome. In parallel, mapping population analysis and a new high-density quality-specific genetic linkage map and quantitative trait loci association with major quality compounds such as anthocyanins, sugars, organic acids and other polyphenols were developed. This contributed to the identification of significant associations between 28 quality traits and 978 markers present on genetic linkage map and created a functional tool for future quality-orientated blackcurrant breeding. The genetic linkage map assisted further functional annotation of several new Ribes SNP based markers obtained through GbS technology through their association with quality traits for which polymorphism can be analysed using existing blackcurrant genomic resources. Integration of functional candidate genes identified in fruit ripening analysis and on genetic linkage map with several blackcurrant genomic resources formed a platform for assisting further developments in quality-orientated blackcurrant breeding at The James Hutton Institute. This platform provides a holistic view of the mechanisms that underlie fruit compositional quality and may provide a means for germplasm selection with no prior phenotypic information. Knowledge and tools developed in this study can be further developed with new developing genomic technologies.

Typescript. / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

Typescript (photocopy). / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

NSTP Online is a news database produced by The New Straits Times Press (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia). This service is comprised of two major components - Newsbase and Special Databases, which provide archival Malaysian information. NSTP Online is the trade name of the online database available commercially and internally to the organisation.Quality issues are acknowledged by database producers but are often overlooked due to resource, technology and human constraints. The key quality issues include contents, data quality, customer support and database structure. The objective of investigating these issues from the users' perspective is because it is the major issue from the business point of view. The few database quality studies documented in the literature are limited to methodological development.Quality issues from the users' perspective are difficult to measure due to the intangible nature of information, the researcher's dependence on the subjective opinions of the users and the variables associated with experience and costs. The aim of the study is to investigate the problems affecting the use of information and identify areas requiring further examination by the database producer.The results of this investigation draw upon the writer's experience with NSTP Online and the feedback obtained from the questionnaire and interviews conducted in Malaysia. This paper examines the differences in usage, training, support and data retrieval among the external and internal users. Despite the fact that NSTP Online needs to be improved in terms of contents, currency, technology and telecommunication, the service is still regarded as an useful information tool by the users.The paper highlights the many problems that require further planning and improvement for internal and external users. These include developing an appropriate channel of communication, an improved understanding ++ / of the requirements and expectations of the users, and an increased depth to the contents available to the customers. It is recommended that future improvement be focused on the problems faced by the users and the way in which a number of these can be overcome with the use of more advanced technology.

Current models of quality in the marketing discipline tend to have a producer orientation. Influences on quality outside the control of the firm, such as consumer perceptions or needs, are only addressed in a rudimentary manner. While quality is acknowledged as being determined by the consumer and akin to an attitude, ironically, literature on quality is not well grounded in relevant theory from psychology and related disciplines. This thesis presents an exploration of quality and its meaning within the context of assessing scholarly marketing articles. The objective of the study is to develop a new consumer- oriented model of quality to enhance understanding of the construct, enabling marketers to better influence consumers� assessment of quality. The academic marketplace involves articulate and experienced producers, channel members and consumers. An investigation of quality within the context of marketing�s scholarly articles therefore provides rich material for refining the quality construct. The first stage of the research addressed two research questions related to scholarly articles: RQ1: What intrinsic factors (article attributes) influence quality assessments? RQ2: What extrinsic factors (external to the article) influence quality assessments? The components of quality in scholarly articles were drawn from several sources: literature sources; journal editorial policies; key informant interviews; and analysis of the content and editorial boards of the top journals. Overall, results suggested a connection between consumers� assessments of quality and factors such as their belief structures, reference group norms, and consumption context. The empirical findings led to further investigation through literature analysis. Theories from psychology helped to explain the interplay of beliefs, attitudes and perceptions in quality assessments and suggest consumer characteristics (such as the rigidity of mental sets, or novelty seeking behaviour) that influence that interplay. On a theoretical level, the new quality model integrates theories of psychology with product-oriented aspects providing a multifaceted view of the quality construct. This is achieved by using the Theory of Planned Behaviour as the central framework, providing a robust depiction of quality assessment from a consumer perspective. Elements of quality from managerial models, such as product attributes and company image, are found to fit logically into the new structure. The new model also reveals connections with the philosophy and sociology of science and provides an enhanced understanding of the workings of academia and the dissemination of scholarly knowledge. There has previously been no comprehensive study of quality in academic articles, therefore on a practical level the model of quality supports authors in producing improved manuscripts, thus enabling faster review and dissemination of research within the discipline. Further research to refine and test the model is recommended.

n/a

Thesis (doctoral)--University of Tartu, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

<p>The customers perceived all 5 SERVQUAL dimensions; tangibles, reliability, assurance, responstiveness, and empathy, pertaining service quality performance at low level when compared with their expectation. Thailand Resor AB should fulfill these 5 gaps and pay attention at assurance dimension concerning conveying trust and confidence because of the highest gap. The dimension of tangibles (equipment, physical facilities, etc.), empathy (ability to see through the customer’s eyes), responstiveness (willingness to help and provide prompt service), and reliability (doing what company have promised) were adjusted consequencely. The respondents highlighted the following key quality factors of their expectations; be treated with respect, be listened to and be dedicated attention, more friendly staffs, get the accoracy information. Some respondent have fuzzy expectations that he company have to further discover the real expectations by providing gauidance to their staffs to encourage them to ask questions.</p>