Background and Aim The South African higher education sector has undergone numerous changes over the past years due to external factors such as globalisation, managerialism and neo-liberalism (Ntshoe, Higgs, Higgs&Wolhuter, 2008). Furthermore De Villiers and Steyn (2009) add that state funding of higher education in South Africa has been decreased to such an extent that higher education institutions (HEI’s) have been unable to parallel the increase in the number of students enrolled per year. As mentioned by Mouton (2010) universities in sub-Saharan Africa continue to operate under conditions which are seriously under-resourced, which poses significant challenges for the scholars concerned. The changes in the Higher Education Institutional environment have forced HEI’s to increase their level of output in terms of: enrollments, qualifications awarded, research output and institution size and number of disadvantaged students (De Villiers&Steyn, 2009) in order to remain competitive. The number of changes in performance outputs as well as the growing market for competitive higher education (HE) has greatly impacted the job demands of academics in South Africa. The environment in which academics in South Africa function now demands more of them than in previous years. For example the employment relationship has changed (i.e. teacher-driven to student-driven), altering the type of work that people do, when they work and how much they do (Barkhuizen, Rothmann&Van de Vijver, in press). Accordingly, it appears that the job demands of academics have escalated, whilst the levels of support and other resources have declined. The objective of this study was to investigate whether job demands and resources are significant predictors of dispositional employability of academics in South Africa. Method A cross–sectional research design was followed. The Job Characteristics Scale developed by Barkhuizen and Rothman (2005) and the Dispositional Measure of Employability (Fugate&Kinicki, 2008) were used as measures in this study. A total of 360 questionnaires were sent out to the sample, of which 158 completed questionnaires were received, but only 146 of these responses could be used for data analyses. This represents a 40.55% response rate. Results The results showed that there is a significant relationship between job demands and the change identity of the academics and that job demands do act as a predictor of the dispositional employability of academics in terms of their change identity. No significant relationship between the job resources and the dispositional employability of the academics were found, however all of the dimensions of DE had a positive relationship with job resources. A significant relationship between job demands and the ethnicity, home language, age, the respondent’s job level and the number of hours they work was found. However, no statistically significant differences were found within gender, qualifications, job categories, years in service and the number of years in current positions. According to the results the white ethnic group experiences higher job demands than the black ethic group. Furthermore respondents speaking either Afrikaans or English experience higher job demands then respondents speaking indigenous languages. In relation to this, the age group 50 to 59 experience higher job demands compared to that of the age group 20-29. Associate professors experience higher job demands than junior lecturers. No significant relationship between the academics’ perception of their job resources and their demographic characteristics was found. There are significant differences between the DE of the academics and their ethnicity, home language, job category, years in service and hours of work. No statistically significant differences were found within gender, age, qualifications, job level or years in the current position. The Black ethnic group indicates higher levels of resilience and motivation compared to the other ethnic groups, and indigenous languages have higher levels of resilience compared to the other two language groups. Academics that function as both researchers and lecturers have higher levels of career proactivity compared to the academics that function only as a researcher or lecturer. Respondents that have been in the industry for between zero to 10 years have a higher level of resilience compared to the respondents who have served for longer. The working hours of group four (between 31 to 40 hours) show higher levels of resilience compared to the other groups. / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Human Resource Management

This diploma theses deals with the Most! series presented by the Czech television in 2019. The purpose of this theses was to find out how the Most! series distinguished from standard Czech series production. In the theoretical part of this theses the Most! series has been put in the Czech series context and concrete distinctions have been investigated. It has been found out, that the most important distinctions have lain in characters, creatively used filming locations and the main theme. Also it has been found out that the Most! series can be considered quality TV so it was endowed with higher quality than other Czech series. Practical part of the theses has been divided into two parts. The purpose of the first part has been to investigate the media reflection of the series using quantitative methods of research. Alongside this research another quantitative analysis of the Czech series Policie Modrava has been made to gain data to comparision. It has been found out that the Most! media reflection contained more published articles from wider media spectrum and it differed mainly in topics and journalistic genres. So it has been proven that the distinction of the Most! series influenced its media reflection. In the second practical part it has been investigated whether the Most! series has...

Nowadays, becoming proficient in merely one variety of English may not be sufficient, since this does not guarantee an ability to communicate with the vast majority of English speakers worldwide (Modiano, 2009; Fang & Ren, 2018). Despite this, studies show that European ELT still largely focus on certain varieties over others (Modiano, 2009); hence, it is interesting to study the materials used within this context. The present study is intended to contribute to research within the field of World Englishes and ELT. The purpose of the study is to investigate linguistic variation and language ideology in teaching materials used in the course of English 5 within Swedish upper secondary schools. For this purpose, a content analytical approach has been applied for data collection, combining qualitative and quantitative methods. Two EFL-textbooks, Blueprint A 3.0 and Viewpoints 1, have been analyzed and three interviews have been conducted with EFL teachers working in Swedish upper secondary schools. The data elicited through the study shows that linguistic variation in English is limited within the two textbooks, and that when speakers of non-standard varieties appear in the textbooks they are presented in a controversial manner. Moreover, the interviews conducted with the teachers yielded insights into teachers’ perspectives on the importance of exposing students to different varieties of English. The perspectives offered through the interviews imply that not all teachers consider the knowledge of dialectal and social variation within the English language to be of importance, despite that it is, in fact, an objective set for students taking the course of English 5. In general, the findings suggest that the linguistic representation within Swedish teaching materials and practices still favor certain Englishes, i.e. British and American English, over others.

Background: The development of social media brings traditional marketing into a newera - social media marketing - which offers new platforms through which brands cancarry out marketing activities and connect with their customers. Thus, social mediamarketing has become important for brands and marketers to reach their customers andsocial media marketing activities (SMMAs) include entertainment, trendiness,customisation, interaction, and word of mouth (WOM). Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explain the impact of social media marketingactivities (SMMAs) on customer satisfaction.  Methodology: A quantitative method and deductive research approach were adopted inthis research as a means of gathering data. Through a cross-sectional research design, anonline self-completion questionnaire was created and conducted with consideration ofethical and societal issues; as a result, 165 valid responses were collected. The collecteddata from the respondents were analysed through frequency analysis, descriptiveanalysis, explore analysis, reliability analysis, correlation analysis as well as multipleregression analysis. Findings: The results of this research revealed that both H3 and H4 were accepted,meaning that customisation and interaction have a significant positive impact oncustomer satisfaction. Conversely, H1, H2, and H3, i.e., entertainment, trendiness, andword of mouth (WOM), were rejected. Conclusion: This study concluded that customisation on social media (H3) positivelyinfluences customer satisfaction which can be understood as customised content isaimed in a way to suit the customers’ own preferences. Furthermore, interaction onsocial media (H4) was revealed to have a significant and positive impact on customersatisfaction. As firms and businesses interact with their customers on social media, theyallow for communication between a brand and the customer. Whereas, entertainment(H1), trendiness (H2) and WOM (H5) on social media do not significantly impactcustomer satisfaction.

Utifrån min egen skolgång och känslan av att musikskapande aktiviteter bortprioriterats för att skapa utrymme för sådana moment som ger ”mest kunskap” har jag med denna studie valt att undersöka just användandet av musikskapande aktiviteter i grundskolans musikundervisning. Den tidigare forskning som lyfts fram visar att kreativa arbetssätt och skapande aktiviteter främjar elevers musikaliska kunskaper och sociala färdigheter. Trots detta visar statliga utvärderingar av musikämnet att musikskapande aktiviteter är eftersatt på många skolor i landet samt att musiklärare saknar självförtroende och kompetens att undervisa i momentet. Genom en webbenkät som datainsamlingsmetod syftar föreliggande studie till att studera musiklärares arbete med musikskapande aktiviteter. Forskningsfrågorna som ligger till grund för arbetet berör musiklärares definition av musikskapande aktiviteter, attityd till och prioritering av momentet samt eventuella samband mellan olika faktorer och användandet av musikskapande aktiviteter i undervisning. Metodmässigt tar studien en medelväg och med avstamp i ett explorativt perspektiv kan studien anses ha sin grund i den kvantitativa ansatsen tillsammans med vissa kvalitativa tolkande inslag. Resultatet av studien visar att de medverkande informanterna har en övervägande positiv attityd till musikskapande aktiviteter samt enligt sin egen uppfattning prioriterar momentet i relativt hög grad i sin undervisning. Musikskapande som komposition, musikskapande som digital produktion och musikskapande som gestaltande kommunikation är tre övergripande innebörder av begreppet musikskapande som framträder ur resultatet, dock anser många informanter att begreppet är svårdefinierat och att det snarare är ett sammanfattande begrepp för flera moment i undervisningen. Ytterligare resultat visar att faktorer som kön, yrkeserfarenhet, attityder och vilken del av landet informanten undervisar i pekar på tydliga samband i förhållande till attityd och prioritering av musikskapande aktiviteter. Avslutningsvis förs en diskussion kring studiens resultat och huruvida musikskapande aktiviteter bör ses som ett genomsyrande förhållningssätt i musikundervisningen snarare än ett enskilt moment. / Based on my own schooling and the feeling that music-creating activities have been de-prioritized to create space for elements of music that provides "the most knowledge", I have with this study chosen to investigate the use of music-creating activities in primary school music education. Previous research that highlights shows that creative thinking and creative activities promote students' musical knowledge and social skills. Despite this, evaluations of Swedish music education shows that music-creating activities are neglected in many schools and that music teachers lack the self-confidence and competence to teach the element. Through a web survey as a collection method of data, this essay aims to study music teachers’ usage of music-creating activities in their practice. The research questions that form the basis of the study concern music teachers' definition of music-creating activities, attitudes to and inclusion of the element and possible connections between different factors. Methodologically, the study takes a middle ground and with a starting point in an exploratory perspective the study is considered to have its basis in the quantitative approach together with certain qualitative interpretive elements. The result of the study shows that the participating informants have a predominantly positive attitude towards music-creating activities as well as recurring use of it in their teaching. Music creation as composition, music creation as digital production and music creation as formative communication are three main definitions of the concept of music creation that emerges from the survey answers, however, many informants believe that the concept is difficult to define and that it is rather a summary concept for several moments in teaching. Further results show that factors such as gender, professional experience, attitude and which part of the country the informants teach point to clear connections in relation to the use of music-creating activities. Finally, there is a discussion about the results of the study and whether music-creating activities should be seen as a permeating approach in music teaching rather than an individual element.

Western society has undergone a major developments in human values, social norms and the degree of tolerance to various manifestations of human behavior after the World War II. and this development naturally continues until today. With this is connected a permissive society, society with so free normative structure, that it tolerates almost all kinds of social behavior. For some people is exaggerated liberality harmful and threatens normative system and values asociated with moral decline. The thesis will be about permissiveness and tolerance to some kinds of people's action in Czech republic. At the very beginning of the theoretical part I will explain the basic concepts. Then I'll make a probe into the past and explain social revolution which led to formation of permissive society with all important causes. After that I'll focuse on main symptoms of permissive society. Theoretical part will be ended by historical look at the conditions for permissiveness in post-war Czech. In analytical part I will use data from European values study, my based on that quantitative research from year 2014 and other available data. There will be general anaylisis about development of permissivenes since 1991 till today. My 2014 data will be also used in more detailed analysis using sociodemographic characteristics. Powered...

The risk of having a disability increases with advancing age and as the life expectancy is growing worldwide, the number of people living with disability is expected to increase, as well as the number of years lived with disability. Low back pain and sarcopenia are health problems that present a higher prevalence with aging. While low back pain is a symptom, sarcopenia is considered a geriatric syndrome. However, both issues constitute a significant health burden in older adults. Although there are many research studies investigating low back pain, the participation of older adults is often missing from these studies, preventing the generalization of the findings to this population, and leaving some questions unanswered. On the other hand, sarcopenia is a new research field with gaps to fill and flaws to correct. Questions related to low back pain management in older adults, the inclusion of this population in clinical trials, the presence of association between sarcopenia and low back pain and questions pertaining the diagnosis and measurement of sarcopenia have yet to be fully addressed by researchers. The broad aim of this thesis therefore was to contribute to a better understanding concerning low back pain and sarcopenia in older adults by performing studies in these key research areas. Different interventions are presented in clinical practice guidelines for the treatment of low back pain. However, these recommendations are based on clinical trials investigating young and middle-aged adults and as a result, the recommendations do not encompass older adults. Therefore, a systematic review was performed with the objective of assessing the effectiveness of interventions for low back pain in older adults ≥ 60 years (Chapter 3). Eligible studies were identified via searches in Medline, EMBASE, CINAHL, LILACS, PEDro, and Cochrane CENTRAL. A total of 18 randomized controlled trials fulfilled the eligibility criteria and the results from eight trials were pooled in a meta-analysis to test the effectiveness of complementary health approaches (i.e., manual therapy, acupuncture, mindfulness, yoga). Evidence about interventions to manage non-specific low back pain in older adults was found to be weak. Very low to moderate quality evidence showed that complementary health approaches, percutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, education, exercise, or pharmacological agents did not produce a clinically significant reduction in pain and disability at short and intermediate terms compared to sham, usual care, or minimal intervention. Interventions were often not well described and the risk of bias was moderate (average of 6.4 on the 10-point PEDro Scale (SD = 1.44)). Evidence about interventions for non-specific low back pain in older adults is limited and new studies are highly likely to change these results. Participation of older adults in clinical trials pertaining to the management of low back pain has been limited. Usually, the exclusion of older adults from clinical trials is based solely on an arbitrary age limit. Therefore, an investigation concerning the potential increased inclusion of older adults in upcoming clinical trials was conducted (Chapter 4). Chapter four presents an analysis of the International Clinical Trial Registry Platform database from the World Health Organization performed to verify the participation of older adults in registered clinical trials. A total of 167 clinical trial protocols for low back pain with registration dates from January 2015 through November 2018 were planning to recruit participants older than 65 years. However, only five registered trials (2.99%; pooled sample = 169 participants) were designed to target this population specifically. The exclusion of older participants was not formally justified and imposed through an arbitrary upper-age limit in 93.6% of the protocols. Most studies planning to include older adults were interested in pharmacologic interventions, devices/technology, and physical rehabilitation, and were to be carried out in developed regions. However, older adults with low back pain will continue to be under-investigated in clinical trials for low back pain in the near future. Although a slight increase in the participation of older adults in clinical trials was observed, the improvement is small and some questions still need an answer. Therefore, a survey investigating whether researchers recognize the exclusion of older adults from clinical trials, its impact, and justifications to support this exclusion was realized (Chapter 5). All attendees of the 2017 International Back Forum were invited by email to answer an electronic survey about their opinions regarding participation of older adults in clinical trials for low back pain. Approximately 90% of those who answered the questionnaire were engaged with back research, with more than a half having done or doing a clinical trial for low back pain. Most of the respondents believed that older people are excluded from clinical trials for low back pain and that exclusion based solely on age is not justifiable. About two thirds of the respondents reported that the exclusion of older people from clinical trials can impose a barrier in offering evidence-based interventions to this population. More researchers are planning to include older adults in their current/future trials compared to their previous work. An increase in the investigation of older adults in clinical trials is expected in the future which may optimize the development of evidence-based interventions for this population. As early evidence suggests an association between sarcopenic markers and low back pain, the association between the diagnosis of sarcopenia and low back pain still needs to be investigated (Chapter 6). Therefore, a study investigating the association between sarcopenia using different diagnosis criteria and low back pain in older adults was performed. Data from 12,646 older adults (50.1% men, 49.9% women) ≥ 65 years of age that participated in the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) were analyzed. The prevalence of low back pain in the past 12 months as well the prevalence of sarcopenia assessed through different definitions, and the number of comorbidities and depressive symptoms were included in the analysis. Associations between sarcopenia, comorbidities and lifestyle factors with low back pain were examined using multivariate logistic regressions. Prevalence of low back pain was 16.3% and the prevalence of sarcopenia varied among sarcopenia definitions and the presence of low back pain. Participants with low back pain had higher prevalence of pre-sarcopenia and sarcopenia compared to those without low back pain based on the International Working Group on Sarcopenia (x2 = 20.25, p < 0.001) and the Foundation National Institute of Health definitions (x2 = 13.83, p < 0.001). The odds of having low back pain was higher among those with sarcopenia based on the Foundation National Institute of Health criterion (OR 1.28, 95%CI 1.0-1.64). These results suggest that sarcopenia may influence low back pain in older adults and future studies should consider to test whether the association between sarcopenia and low back pain is causal. Current clinical practice guidelines recommend to divide patients with low back pain in specific subgroups to provide a targeted intervention. However, despite older adults presenting specific age-related characteristics that could classify them as a subgroup, this population has been neglected. Sarcopenia is a muscle disease affecting older adults and is diagnosed with the presence of a reduction in muscle strength and muscle quantity/quality. Although low back pain has been shown to be associated with muscle dysfunction, the role of sarcopenia in relation to low back pain is unknown. An experiment comparing sarcopenic markers (grip strength and gait speed), muscle activity and elasticity between older adults with and without chronic low back pain was conducted (Chapter 7). The anticipatory activity of transversus abdominis muscle during the rapid arm abduction test, transversus abdominis muscle elasticity, grip strength and gait speed were collected from a group of older adults (≥ 60 years) with chronic low back pain (≥ 3 months) and the results compared with a control group of matched older adults without low back pain. Participants with chronic low back pain presented with a reduction in the sarcopenic markers compared with the controls: grip strength (mean difference (MD) = 5.3Kg, 95%CI = 1.5-9.0, p = 0.006), gait speed (MD = 0.21m/s, 95%CI = 0.10-0.31, p<0.001), as well as a delay in activation of transversus abdominis (p = 0.002). A delay in transversus abdominis muscle activation, and a reduction in muscle strength and gait speed were observed in older adults with chronic low back pain compared to subjects without back complaints. These findings show an association between muscle dysfunction and chronic low back pain in older adults. Although the definition of sarcopenia was recently updated establishing muscle strength as the key criteria surpassing the role of muscle mass, there remains confusion regarding its diagnosis and the comparison of estimates is problematic. Therefore, a systematic review assessing how sarcopenia is measured and defined in population-based studies was performed. Chapters 8 and 9 describe the protocol of a systematic review and the full systematic review respectively. The databases Medline, EMBASE, CINAHL, Web of Science (Core Collection), and Google Scholar were searched for observational population-based studies reporting prevalence of sarcopenia in community dwelling older adults. Descriptive statistics were used to present data pertaining to sarcopenia definition and measurement tools, and the quality-effects model for meta-analysis of pooled prevalence. Results found seven different operational definitions of sarcopenia and a variety of measurement tools applied to assess the sarcopenic markers: muscle mass, muscle strength and physical performance. The prevalence of sarcopenia varied between the definitions, with general estimates ranging from 5% based on the European Working Group on Sarcopenia in Older People (EWGSOP1) criterion to 17% with the International Working Group on Sarcopenia criterion. The use of different measurement tools to assess muscle mass, strength and physical performance resulted in variations within definitions ranging from 1 to 7%, 1 to 12% and 0 to 22%, respectively. The criteria used to define sarcopenia, as well as the measurement tools used to assess sarcopenic markers has an influence in the prevalence of sarcopenia. The establishment of a unique definition for sarcopenia, the use of methods that guarantee an accurate evaluation of muscle mass, and the standardization of measurement tools are necessary to allow a proper diagnosis and comparison of sarcopenia prevalence among populations.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Randomized studies are designed to estimate the average treatment effect (ATE) of an intervention. Individuals may derive quantitatively, or even qualitatively, different effects from the ATE, which is called the heterogeneity of treatment effect. It is important to detect the existence of heterogeneity in the treatment responses, and identify the different sub-populations. Two corresponding statistical methods will be discussed in this talk: a hypothesis testing procedure and a mixture-model based approach. The hypothesis testing procedure was constructed to test for the existence of a treatment effect in sub-populations. The test is nonparametric, and can be applied to all types of outcome measures. A key innovation of this test is to build stochastic search into the test statistic to detect signals that may not be linearly related to the multiple covariates. Simulations were performed to compare the proposed test with existing methods. Power calculation strategy was also developed for the proposed test at the design stage. The mixture-model based approach was developed to identify and study the sub-populations with different treatment effects from an intervention. A latent binary variable was used to indicate whether or not a subject was in a sub-population with average treatment benefit. The mixture-model combines a logistic formulation of the latent variable with proportional hazards models. The parameters in the mixture-model were estimated by the EM algorithm. The properties of the estimators were then studied by the simulations. Finally, all above methods were applied to a real randomized study in a low ejection fraction population that compared the Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator (ICD) with conventional medical therapy in reducing total mortality.

This study investigated the relationship between Chinese young adults' usage of micro-blog and their cultural values. Data was collected from a group-administered survey, which was constituted by 484 students aged from 17 to 30 in variety majors in five colleges in Beijing. Results answered two research questions, indicating that there is a strong relationship between traditional cultural values' changes in Chinese young adults and micro-blog usage. The results also indicated that the more Chinese young adults engaged in micro-blog usage, the more likely they would show distinctive features in both Eastern and Western cultural values. In other words, highly active Chinese micro-blog users have crossed the Eastern and Western cultural boundaries and are developing bicultural identity due to globalization in media environment.

The thesis investigates the influence of media consultation habits as the developers of risk perceptions among young travelers. It deals with the information-seeking practices of individuals aged 18 to 29 by scrutinizing the extent to which certain media channels are sought out to inform themselves about travel-related risks. By employing a quantitative research approach and collecting data through a web-based questionnaire, the study investigates the role of various information channels by measuring the degree to which they are sought out by the respondents. The findings reveal that legacy media is the most trusted source for risk information among young travelers, surpassing social media and other channels. This unexpected result highlights the significant role of traditional media in shaping risk perceptions despite the prevalence of digital platforms. The study's conclusions are intended to serve tourism professionals and destination managers seeking to enhance communication strategies and manage tourists' risk perceptions effectively.