Published Article / This paper is concerned to show that seminal public policy principles have sometimes failed to translate into improved customer service in South Africa and to discover why this should be so. After discussing various dimensions of public policy formulation and implementation, the article cites instances whereby service levels are seen to be compromised by poor execution of policy. It is submitted that inappropriate criteria for the recruitment of office bearers, and a worrying tendency to fail to distinguish adequately between public and private goods, have contributed to degraded levels of customer service which violate the spirit of Batho Pele. It is concluded that government needs to 'walk the talk' with respect to Batho Pele by ridding its administration of officials who have shown themselves to be either incompetent or corrupt.

As technology becomes integrated into everyday life, the relationship between the human and machine must be kept in a balance. Not only does the technology have to perform its intended function, but it must do so in accordance with the dynamic parameters of the complex use environment, in a way that does not encumber the user either physically or mentally. The dissertation explores the challenges of such a scenario through an analysis of three core facets: Affordances, or the user interface cues that allow an intuitive means of operating a device; the aspect of simplicity and its effect on the use factors of the technology (while something might seem to be simple, it may actually be complex to use); and cognitive load in terms of user impact, as a result of utilizing the technology. These illustrate the challenges inherent in understanding the facets fundamental to human- machine interaction in a complex environment. The three factors will be explored first through an historical analysis of the work in each aspect. The theories at hand will be utilized to inform the creation of iterative generations of wearable sensory systems. By utilizing the systems in the field of dance, the theoretical aspects of the core factors can be gauged by actual implementation. Each implementation will be compared side by side to gauge differences in terms of movement dynamics and efficacy of execution. The study will reveal that the three core factors of affordance, simplicity and cognitive load combine synergistically to create a foundational methodology for seamless integration of technology in a complex use scenario. Furthermore, the facets of interoperability between devices in a complex use environment will be illustrated through the theory of intra-interactivity. Finally, the dissertation will illustrate the advantages of passive user interaction and its necessity in relation to the factor of cognitive load. / text

Researchers differ in their views of the structure of traditional middle and high schools in public education on student performance. They question the effectiveness of school and age level configuration, and its comparability with the age-appropriate cognitive, social and emotional development needs of students. Some believe that eliminating the traditional break between elementary and middle schools would enhance students' overall learning opportunities, particularly for ethnic minority and economically disadvantaged students and reduce the current disparity in student performance between traditional middle schools and K-8 academies. This research is founded on a study of (a) curricular and co-curricular richness of the core program; and (b) the organizational elements of the elementary and intermediate school configurations. This mixed-methods investigation utilized both quantitative and qualitative methods to develop the data. The quantitative method incorporated a comparison of six schools that were once either K-5 elementary schools or 6-8 traditional middle schools but were later reconfigured to encompass all grade levels making them K-8 Academies. The quantitative method was used to evaluate the quality of (a) student performance in mathematics and language arts as determined by state assessments (b) the school climate as perceived by the teachers, parents and community members. Creswell (2005) noted that the combination of quantitative and qualitative data gathering, analysis, and interviews strengthens the understanding of the problem and related research findings. Many school districts with 6-8 traditional middle schools have experienced students not making adequate progress and are considering changing their grade structure to K-8. DeJong and Craig (2002) list the reasons for this conversion to cause fewer transitions for students, to keep students in neighborhood schools, to reduce transportation costs, to improve safety, and to accommodate declining enrollment. The researcher hopes that, along with other current research, this study may serve to compel more school districts to consider adopting alternative grade configurations when students are not making adequate progress in the traditional 6-8 grade configuration. / text

La focalisation prosodique désigne le soulignement d’un constituant dans un énoncé au moyen de différentes ressources prosodiques, en particulier l’accentuation et l’intonation. Plusieurs fonctions sont attribuées à la focalisation : le marquage des différentes catégories de focus, ainsi que des fonctions emphatiques (ici appelées insistance et expressivité). Cette thèse a pour principal but de savoir si la focalisation et ses fonctions présentent des propriétés spécifiques dans le phonogenre de la parole interprétée, c’est-à-dire l’oralisation d’un texte écrit mémorisé au préalable par le locuteur (généralement un comédien). Cette question présente un intérêt pour la linguistique et la phonétique à plusieurs titres. Tout d’abord, les différences de réalisation prosodique entre les fonctions de la focalisation sont encore mal connues. Par ailleurs, peu d’études ont été consacrées aux caractéristiques prosodiques de la parole interprétée. Enfin, notre thèse présente un apport sur le plan méthodologique à travers le protocole relativement novateur de ses deux expériences. Dans une expérience de production, des locuteurs ont reproduit des conversations spontanées en parole lue et en parole interprétée. Un groupe d’experts en prosodie a ensuite relevé les occurrences de focalisation dans le corpus et a effectué une classification fonctionnelle de ces occurrences. Nous avons également mené une expérience de perception afin de comparer la réalisation des fonctions de la focalisation indépendamment du phonogenre. Malgré un taux d’accord entre experts relativement faible (ce qui soulève plusieurs questions méthodologiques et théoriques), nos analyses révèlent plusieurs résultats originaux. La fréquence d’occurrence de la focalisation est la plus élevée en parole interprétée, suivie de la parole lue. Ce résultat confirme notre prédiction et suggère que la parole interprétée est un phonogenre favorable à l’étude de la focalisation. Une forte relation est observée entre la fonction d’insistance et le trait d’accentuation initiale, ce qui confirme de nombreuses études précédentes. Le phonogenre se révèle en revanche avoir très peu d’influence sur la réalisation de la focalisation et de ses fonctions. Ce résultat est dû selon nous à un manque de données et au fait que certains traits prosodiques n’ont pas été pris en compte dans l’analyse. / Prosodic highlighting refers to the distinction of a constituent through various prosodic means, especially accentuation and intonation. It is taken to fulfill several functions: marking the different types of focus, as well as emphatic functions (named here “insisting” and “expressiveness”). The main goal of this thesis is to determine whether prosodic highlighting and its functions display specific features in interpreted speech, a speaking style that can be defined as the oralization of a written text previously memorized by the speaker (typically an actor). This question is relevant for linguistics and phonetics on several counts. First, little is still known about prosodic differences between functions of prosodic highlighting. Moreover, few studies have analyzed the prosodic characteristics of interpreted speech. Finally, through their innovative protocols, the two experiments described in this thesis present a methodological contribution. A production experiment consisted in having speakers replicate spontaneous conversations in read and interpreted speech. A group of experts then annotated the occurrences of prosodic highlighting in the corpus, and assigned a function to each occurrence. A perception experiment was also led in order to compare the realization of each function independently of speaking style. Despite a relatively low agreement rate between experts (which raises several methodological and theoretical questions), our analyses reveal several important results. The frequency of occurrence of prosodic highlighting is highest in interpreted speech, followed by read speech. This confirms our prediction and suggests that interpreted speech is more suited to the study of prosodic highlighting than other speaking styles. A strong association is observed between insisting and initial secondary accent, which confirms many previous studies. However, there is almost no influence of speaking style on the realization of prosodic highlighting and its functions. We attribute this result to a lack of data and to the fact that some prosodic features were not taken into account in the analysis.

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Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oregon State University, 2010. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 132-156). Also available on the World Wide Web.

published_or_final_version / Medicine / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Medicine / Master / Master of Philosophy

Introduction: Enterprise recourse planning (ERP) is a system that combines software, hardwareand people to manage information The aim of this study is to investigate ERP systems effect onbusiness performance (advertised vs. realized benefits) and user’s complaints. It also aims toidentify the most important issue a company faces after implementing an ERP system and if thisstops potential benefits from happening. This will be viewed from a user’s perspective. Approach/Methodology: This research includes qualitative and quantitative primary data withsecondary data to answer the research questions posed. It is based on a number of semistructuredinterviews of people well versed in ERP systems presented in case study form.Alongside, it also utilizes a series of questionnaires presented in tabular form. The data wasanalyzed and linked with theory to provide answers and test assumptions. Findings: ERP systems provide their advertised benefits to a large extent. The most importantorganizational issue after implementing an ERP system is resistance to change and this issueaffects the benefits realization of the system. Finally, user’s complaints about ERP systems arevaried and include the speed of the system, support in error situations and general complexity. Conclusions: Even though it provides many benefits in business performance, an ERP system,selection and implementation in a company is a critical step. The whole process is complicated,resource consuming, takes a long time and can encounter problems. Mistakes in theimplementation cost a company more resources to fix after they happen. In this case preventionis better than cure and the best medicine.Implications and Value of research: ERP system implementation and use should bemethodically planned from the beginning to get maximum benefits realization. This is especiallyimportant in effectively managing change in an organization. In this issue, top level managersshould be aware and committed to. Suggestion for future studies: A possible research that could correlate user complaintcategories already established with age group of respondents under a global perspective.