The main research question that this paper aims to answer is: ‘In what does today’s attack on humanities consist and how can humanities be defended?’ In order to answer this research question, one needs first to describe how the humanities have argued for their usefulness before the Bologna Process; second, provide reasons for the claim that the Bologna Process would be a new type of attack; and third, analyse the new defences for the humanities, so as to discuss whether these are suitable.   There are several arguments why employability should not be the main interpretation for ‘usefulness’ in education. Some authors argue that the focus on employability is a good excuse for European governments to give up on regulating the labour market, and instead transfer the responsibility on the citizens’ shoulders. If being employed is construed as having employable skills, then the state can only invest in training those skills and, after the education is over, if there are still unemployed people, it means it is their fault they were unemployable. A current debate concerns whether the labour market is too regulated or unregulated; this debate should benefit from taking into account the construction of ‘employability’ through the educational policies in the BP. Others have argued that by constructing the set of employable skills as a response to the demands of today’s labour market, this leaves the future employees incapable of meeting the changed demands in tomorrow’s labour market. Some argue that the labour market’s demands cannot be predicted in principle, and therefore people should construct their life around life-long learning, discarding old skills and gaining new ones as they age. However, this model is oblivious to the fact that a future of the labour market may be dominated by automation, as argued by Luciano Floridi. Employment in sectors of the economy that we today think of as important may not be where the jobs will be created tomorrow. What will it mean in the future for people to have a fulfilling and purposeful life when employment will be reduced to just a few hours a week? We need to remain open to the possibility that the good life of the future will not be the (self-)employed life, the active and mobile model proposed now by the EU. People will need to be active in other fields, not strictly related to bread-winning. Other capacities will need to be used in order to make use of one’s time, and these capacities are now dropped from education in order to construct the employable European citizen.    The Bologna ideal of education is more perishable than what first meets the eye. It is connected with a certain view of what it means to be employable, of what the future labour market’s needs will be, and its time dimension is quite narrow. In order to face the challenges of the future labour markets, as BP had claimed it prepares its students to do, one needs a wider understanding of what it means to have a good life. One way of defending the humanities is to claim that it is equivalent to defending a plurality of educational purposes, the right to build one’s life based on an education that is not submitted to the political goals of the day, ultimately the right to have a dissenting voice and a different perspective on life. The main finding of this study was to show that, before deciding what type of education society needs, we need to understand who we are educating through our universities. Taking a stance on “who should we educate?” is prior to being able to judge educational policies. This decision requires a previous justification that requires arguments taken from the field of social justice: Who needs to be educated and who has the right to be educated? Furthermore, we have seen that all answers we have examined to the question underlying educational policies, i.e. ‘who is being educated?’, were linked at some level with the citizenship issue. By defining who is a full citizen, an answer to the question who had the right to a humanistic education was implicitly answered. Nussbaum’s project to universalise the definition of democratic citizenship would ensure a basis for providing humanistic education for all. Such a line of arguing would provide humanities to the well-regarded status they had starting from the Renaissance times, but this time not as a device for exclusion, but inclusion for all. We have tried to show that, by defending the humanities, one defends the idea of a plurality of educational purposes, the right to build one’s life based on an education that is not submitted to the political goals of the day, ultimately the right to have a dissenting voice and a different perspective on life. By defending humanities, one defends the true ‘usefulness’ of education, namely its potential for constructing democratic citizenship for all.

This extended essay explores a historical investigation into the connections between women and machines, particularly focusing on the traditionally gendered processes of sewing, weaving and other processes deemed ‘handicrafts’ and how they parallel techniques in the evolution of the technologies we recognise today. Within this relationship, the nature of these acts to provide comfort is investigated and related to the practice of art making. This historical lineage is examined in the present day where digital and electronic technologies impact everyday life and cause new a brand of anxieties that require a fresh approach to healing and soothing. Through the analysis of this research my practical input and output are informed and result in the development of an installation of objects that examine the electronic object and how it can be imbued with or reflect these realities.

Men's basketball league season from 1998 to 1999 to the present, much has renewed all the monitored indicators - the number of players, minutes played, the points scored and the coefficient of usefulness. The main part is played by the increased interest in the engaging foreign nationals in the Czech teams. Their representation in the NBL increased since 1998/99 from 7.6% to 41.8% in 2008/09. Influence of this growth is there less participation of Czech players younger than 20 years of course and the high fall of the Czechs above 20 years. If you complete the top ten, twenty and thirty of the best players in NBL we´ll have always of predominance by foreigners. But they could be represented only those players with Czech nationality. Question referred to the project is how these best Czech players will stand in the future. The goal is to determine how the ten most representative of players for the last 3-5 seasons affects the game performance in the parent team. The basic method of the investigation will be analyze statistics of the game (technical register) - gaming performance of the individual player representatives (eg in relation to the results of the team, its composition, etc.). The research sample will be composed by the selection of the men's NBL teams, 10 representatives of the Czech Republic, always two to one of the player post. Authenticated facts gathered from the implementation of the project will be provided to the experts through the periodicals.

Este estudo teve como objetivo a mensuração do grau de eficácia da utilização do Balanced Scorecard – BSC como instrumento de apoio à tomada de decisões estratégicas no Centro Universitário do Leste de Minas Gerais – Unileste-MG. Inicialmente, foi realizado um levantamento bibliográfico sobre o assunto, com o intuito de dar suporte à implementação do instrumento na referida instituição de ensino superior. Através desse levantamento, foi possível mostrar os antecedentes do surgimento do BSC, os conceitos inerentes à utilização do mesmo, as definições encontradas na literatura e o seu funcionamento. Além disso, foram destacados os diversos usos do BSC, bem como os aspectos positivos e negativos do instrumento, e as dificuldades de implementação da ferramenta reportados pela literatura consultada. Num segundo momento, com a implantação do BSC na Instituição, foi possível a comparação entre as dificuldades reportadas pela literatura e aquelas encontradas na sua aplicação no Unileste-MG. Após a sua implantação, foram aplicadas entrevistas contendo questões visando verificar a utilização ou não do BSC pelos gestores do Unileste-MG. Os dados indicaram que, no momento apurado pela pesquisa e nessa instituição especificamente, o BSC não foi eficaz no apoio à tomada de decisões, tendo em vista a sua não utilização pelos envolvidos no processo, conforme deveria ter ocorrido. O resultado alcançado não invalida a utilidade do instrumento, pois são apresentados aos futuros pesquisadores e interessados no uso do BSC os percalços que devem ser removidos para que a ferramenta seja útil como apoio à tomada de decisões gerenciais. Deve-se ainda destacar como um sub-produto da pesquisa o estabelecimento de um modelo de implementação do BSC em Instituição Privada de Ensino Superior que, por ser bastante genérico, pode ser adaptado com facilidade a outros tipos de entidades. / The objective of this study is to measure the degree of effectiveness of the utilization of the Balanced Scorecard – BSC as a supportive tool to the strategic decisions that are made in the Centro Universitário do Leste de Minas Gerais – Unileste-MG. As a beginning, a bibliographic research was made about the subject, with the purpose of giving support to the implementation of the tool in this educational institution. By the research made, it was possible to identify the previous history of the BSC, the concepts related to the use of it, definitions found in the literature and its operation. Besides that, the varied uses of the BSC were pointed out, as well as the positive and negative aspects of this tool and the difficulties towards its implementation reported by the literature consulted. In a second stage, with the implementation, it was possible to compare the difficulties reported by the literature and those found in its application in Unileste-MG. After the implementation, interviews were made containing questions to verify the utilization or not of the BSC by the administrators of the institution. The data indicated that in the period considered by the study and in this institution specifically, the BSC didn’t obtain a degree of effectiveness as a supportive tool, due to the not utilization of it by the individuals involved in the process, as it was expected. The result obtained does not invalid the utilization of the tool, because the difficulties that must be solved so that the tool might be useful to support making decisions in management were presented to the future researches and those interested in the use of the BSC. As a sub-product of this study, it was pointed out a establishment of an implementation model of BSC in a graduate educational institution, and because this model is rather generic, may be easily adapted to other kinds of entities.

Esse estudo investiga a influência do estilo de uso do orçamento empresarial sobre as percepções de seus públicos usuários. O uso do orçamento segue o framework de Adler e Borys (1996) que trata do uso coercitivo e facilitador. As percepções dos usuários do orçamento perfazem a utilidade do artefato e o nível de críticas atribuídas. Essa análise retoma a discussão se o orçamento se caracteriza como um importante instrumento de gestão, tendo em vista diversos estudos que tem defendido sua melhoria (Activity-Based Budgeting) ou abandono (Beyond Budgeting). A discussão é baseada em um framework relativamente recente nas pesquisas de Controle Gerencial (Ahrens & Chapman, 2004) e com potencial para futuras pesquisas no contexto nacional e internacional. O modelo teórico e as hipóteses de pesquisa foram construídos com o objetivo de discutir a influência do uso do orçamento sobre a percepção de utilidade e o nível de críticas. Dentre as dimensões do uso coercitivo e facilitador se destacam a capacidade de reparo, a transparência interna, a transparência global e a flexibilidade. A percepção de utilidade envolve a utilidade para a gestão e relevância para tomada de decisão. O nível de críticas abrange os efeitos perversos, inadaptação ao ambiente, ritual e foco excessivo no curto prazo. A metodologia do estudo é um levantamento com gerentes de uma empresa brasileira de grande porte do setor elétrico (survey single entity). Foram realizadas nove entrevistas com gerentes da empresa e elaborado um questionário eletrônico aplicado a uma amostra de 72 respondentes de uma população de aproximadamente 180, abrangendo gerentes de diversas áreas da organização. As informações coletadas nas entrevistas foram analisadas qualitativamente e apresentadas de modo descritivo, caracterizando os entrevistados, sua interface com o processo orçamentário, além de suas percepções. Os dados coletados pelo survey foram submetidos a técnicas de estatística descritiva e multivariada de equações estruturais (MEE-PLS). Os respondentes tem em média 25 anos de empresa. A análise descritiva do uso do orçamento empresarial indica que, para as dimensões transparência interna e transparência global, o orçamento está mais próximo do estilo de uso facilitador e, pela capacidade de reparo e flexibilidade, mais próximo do uso coercitivo. Além disso, a percepção de utilidade do orçamento é levemente alta e o nível de críticas é baixo. Quanto ao modelo de equações estruturais, se constatou influência indireta do uso facilitador do orçamento sobre o nível de críticas. Pôde-se verificar que o estilo de uso facilitador do orçamento influencia positivamente a percepção de utilidade e negativamente o nível de críticas. Esses resultados não indicam, necessariamente, que o uso facilitador do orçamento seja \"melhor\" que o coercitivo. Na realidade, as empresas tem a liberdade de determinar a forma como pretendem utilizar esse artefato contábil, e ao mesmo tempo devem estar cientes de que essas escolhas influenciam as percepções dos gestores. O presente trabalho fornece indicativos de modelos presentes na literatura que propiciam uma melhor compreensão desses aspectos. / This study investigates the influence of the budgeting style applied on users perceptions. Budgeting use follows the framework of Adler and Borys (1996) dealing with the coercive use and enabling use. Users\' perceptions of the budget account for the usefulness of the artifact and the level of criticism assigned. This analysis discusses if budgeting is characterized as an important management tool in view of several studies that have defended its improvement (Activity-Based Budgeting) or its abandonment (Beyond Budgeting). The discussion is based on a relatively recent framework in Management Control research (Ahrens & Chapman, 2004) and has a potential for future research in national and international context. The theoretical model and research hypotheses were constructed in order to discuss the influence of the style of budgeting use on the perceived usefulness and on the level of criticism. Among the dimensions of coercive and enabling use are repair capacity, internal transparency, global transparency, and flexibility. The perceived usefulness involves the utility and relevance to the management for decision making. The level of criticism covers the perverse effects on people, inability to adapt to the environment, ritual and excessive focus on the short term. The methodology of the study is a survey carried on with managers of a large Brazilian company of the electric sector (survey single entity). Nine interviews were developed with managers and an electronic questionnaire was also applied to a sample of 72 respondents from a population of approximately 180, including managers from different areas of the organization. The information collected in the interviews were qualitatively analyzed and presented in a descriptive manner, characterizing the respondents, their interface with the budget process, and their perceptions. The data collected by the survey were subjected to descriptive statistics and multivariate Structural Equation Modeling (SEM - PLS). Respondents have working time mean of 25 years in the organization. The descriptive analysis of the use of the corporate budgeting indicates that the dimensions of internal transparency and global transparency are closer to the enabling use. The repair capacity and flexibility are nearest to the coercive use. Furthermore, the perceived usefulness of the budgeting is slightly high and the level of critics is low. As for the structural equation model we have found indirect influence of the budgeting enabling use on the level of criticism. It was verified that the enabling style of budgeting use has positive influence on the perceived usefulness and negative on the level of criticism. These results do not necessarily indicate that the enabling style of budgeting use is \"better\" than coercive. In fact, companies have the freedom to determine how they will use this accounting artifact. Meanwhile organizations should be aware that these choices influence the perceptions of managers. This paper provides indicative of models in the literature which propitiate a better understanding of these aspects.

Idag vistas människor på internet i större utsträckning än tidigare och det medför att människor utsätts för ett stort informationsflöde. Enligt tidigare forskning har det för den enskilda individen blivit allt viktigare att kunna sålla bland informationen. Det som har studerats är ett tillvägagångssätt som internetanvändare omedvetet eller medvetet använder sig av när de ska bedöma ett system eller tjänst är hur pass trovärdig systemet eller tjänsten ser ut eller verkar vara. Dessutom har informationskällor olika egenskaper, som design, utformning av gränssnittet, informationsflödet et cetera, som påverkar människors uppfattning kring hur pass trovärdig informationskällan, ett system eller en tjänst anses att vara. Detta i sin tur påverkar en användares vilja och avsikt att använda sig av ett system, tjänst eller informationskälla. Denna studie har studerat hur pass viktigt upplevd trovärdighet är initialt för att en användare ska ta sig an en ny tjänst, samt vilka faktorer som bidrar till upplevd trovärdighet. Studien har genomförts med en anpassad modell av den etablerade technology acceptance model (TAM). Upplevd trovärdighet introducerades i modellen tillsammans med de existerande upplevd användbarhet och upplevd användarvänlighet för att se om det fanns några egenskaper som stärkte avsikt till användning. Studien genomförde sedan användartester med hjälp av “think aloud” och efterföljande intervjuer för att ta reda på deras syn på trovärdighet och hur det förhåller sig till etablerad forskning på området. Det visar sig i studien att den första upplevelsen av ett gränssnitt sätter nivån för hur den vidare upplevelsen blir och kan konstatera att ett väl utformat gränssnitt med tidsenliga färg och formval har stark påverkan för upplevd trovärdighet. Vidare går det att se att första upplevelsen håller i sig trots att användaren möter på motstånd i användartest och där information inte alltid presenteras optimalt. Avsikten till användning förstärks dock genom att kombinera ett väl utformat gränssnitt med tydlig information. Rekommendationer från vänner och antalet användare är också faktorer som bidrar till den upplevda trovärdigheten och avsikten till användning. / The modern human being accesses the internet to a larger extent than earlier and this leads to people facing a grand flow of information. Earlier research suggests that it has become increasingly important for individuals to be able to filter the information. One aspect that internet users consciously or unconsciously use to assess a service or system is its measure of credibility, how credible it appears to be or is. Furthermore, sources of information have different characteristics – for example design, user interface and flow of information – that affects people's perception concerning how credible a service, system or source of information appears to be. This also affects a user's will and intent to use a system, service or source of information. This study has investigated how important credibility is to a user in the early stages of use of a service or system, and map out the factors that affect the measure of perceived credibility. The study has its foundation in the technology acceptance model (TAM). Perceived credibility was introduced in the model together with the already existing perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use to see if there are characteristics that strengthened the intent to use. The study continued with user testing, “think aloud”- techniques and interviews with a group of potential users to find out how they view credibility. The answers were then compared to accomplished research in this area of study. The study shows that the initial experience with an interface sets the bar for the continued experience and that contemporary use of colour and form has profound impact. Even if the user faces issues during user testing and if flaws are found in the flow and structure of information, the first experience still holds its sway. The study also shows that the intent to use magnifies when a well-structured user interface is combined with clear information. Recommendations from friends and the number of users that a service or system has are also factors that contribute to the perceived credibility, which then leads to intention to use.

This thesis uses Narrative Theory and Technology Acceptance Model to uncover the experiences, perceptions, and challenges that five experienced teachers face when using and integrating technology in their classroom. It gives narrative consideration of the value of unique experience by focusing on the stories of each participant, and it analyzes narrative themes. This study found that there were numerous impacts on teachers’ perceptions on the usefulness and ease of use of technology: this included (a) Limits: technology limits, teacher limits, student limits, and practical limits; (b) Support: school board, resources, equipment, parents; and (c) Dynamic environment (teacher-student feedback loop) which influence strategies for integrating technology: attitude, teaching orientation, classroom management, technology management, technology tools, and participant-observer strategies. Study limitations and recommendations are discussed.

The aim of this diploma thesis is to cover the problem of usefulness of financial statements and accompanying notes in relation to the most important users and their investment decision making. First part of the thesis describes substantial principles of financial statements and notes and forms theoretic basis for subsequent practical analysis. The role of annual accounts information in the decision-making process is further determined. General usefulness of financial statements is covered together with its qualitative and quantitative aspects. In practical part of the thesis the scoring-based model is used to assess usefulness of financial statements by examining its qualitative and quantitative aspects. The final part of the thesis is intended to reveal main sections of financial statements which can be easily adjusted to mislead investors in their decision making. The thesis is focused on financial statements based on both IFRS and Czech accounting standards, where both systems are being compared.

This thesis is concerned with the classification of accounting information from the recording phase through to the reporting phase. Various criticisms on the way information is presented in financial statements, especially in the balance sheet and income statement ware found in the literature. Classification models for accounting information have been proposed in the literature but the main disadvantages of these models are that they are inherently static in nature and do not embed the notion of time. To further test the various criticisms of present classification structures, 1) a comprehensive literature survey of the criticisms of present accounting classification structures as presented by researchers in the literature was conducted, 2) a questionnaire was prepared and sent out to companies in industry, academics as well as analysts in order to test these criticisms, and 3) an analysis of the financial statements (balance sheet and income statement) of 93 companies listed on The JSE Securities Exchange South Africa (JSE) was undertaken. The outcome of the above three (3) actions led to the following hypothesis: The current classification of accounting information, from the recording phase to reclassification in the reporting phase, does not supply users of such information with the necessary information for decision-making purposes. In this regard a comprehensive classification framework for accounting information is proposed, with the following properties: • A well-defined set of attributes will be used, ultimately to classify a transaction into a static sub-framework to aid decision-making. • Time will be used to classify a transaction at the time of recording and later to reclassify it at the time of reporting. • The proposed framework will guide the classifier as to how an item finds its way into a static structure. Classification has as its step the identification of all the attributes known at the time of recording and reporting of the items implicitly involved in a transaction. These attributes in essence define the items that are to be classified into a structure as well as allowing for relationships to be drawn among the said items. One of the advantages of classification is the creation of (new) knowledge or information. The utility of such information depends on the quality of the classification performed. Normally the responsibility for classification at both the recording and reporting phases rests with the accountant. The resultant classification should provide enough information to users of financial statements, especially financial managers, to allow them to reclassify the given information to suit their own needs. An important influence on a classification framework for accounting information is the various requirements put forward by a variety of users of such information. Some of these requirements may conflict with one another. It is proposed in this thesis that a distributed union of all requirements of users be taken and all conflicting requirements be removed from the union (i.e. simply put all requirements into one group and remove all those that conflict with one another). Classification is then performed for the result. Additional information may be supplied in the statements to cater for the requirements outside the result. The classification framework for accounting information proposed in this thesis is made up of three (3) sub-frameworks as follows: • A normative sub-framework that defines a number of attributes for a transaction and which is based on the recording (past) and reporting (present) phases of accounting information. This framework also takes transactions with future aspects into account • A decision sub-framework which follows directly on the normative sub-framework and which directs the classifier as to where a transaction should be classified in a final, static sub-framework. • A static sub-framework which shows where items implicitly involved in a transaction are finally classified. Classification frameworks are proposed for both the balance sheet and the income statement. The balance sheet framework embodies a temporal component, a decision component and a static structure. A different classification layout for the income statement, including a temporal component and a static structure, is also proposed in this thesis. / Thesis (DCom (Financial Management Sciences))--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Financial Management / unrestricted

The main purpose of this research is to investigate the perception of South Asian youth on the use of social media in politics. In this research, a comprehensive literature review has been conducted on research ideas based on similar content of the use of social media in politics. Five variables, such as voting behaviour, perceived usefulness, ease of use, political participation and personalization politics have been used to investigate the youth perception regarding the research objectives. In this research positivism research philosophy and descriptive approach has been followed for primary data collection and analysis. Quantitative statistical tools have been used to find out actual results from the study. Frequencies analysis, correlation, Crombach’s Alpha mean, median and mode have been used to evaluate data.  From the analysis, it has been found that the use of social media in politics has a robust impact on the political behaviour of youth on social media. It positively affective the voting behaviour of youth and pursue them to participate in various political activities. The finding of this study reveals that the use of social media in politics has a significant impact on the voting behaviour of people who are using social media in political communication. This research also found that politically interested people get needed information on social media and they get updated about political activities and new policies. The usefulness of social media has a positive impact on the use of social media by youth in political activities. This study also found that social media is easy to use and need less effort to perform communication activities. This pursues youth to use social media in political participation. Another finding is that the use of social media in politics increase youth participation in political activities. The traditional form of communication has a lack of access by the general people. But, digital media allow people to participate in decision making and criticism. This facilitates youth participation in political activities.