An Undergraduate Management Course Project: Experiential Service Learning

The process of engaging undergraduate students can be increasingly challenging. Creating an environment of engagement can be particularly daunting among Principles of Management students due to the theoretical nature of the materials and the perceived overlap with previous management and business coursework. In order to promote internalization and application of management and organizational behavior concepts, a service learning course project is assigned. The following service project not only offers opportunities for experiential learning, but also creates ties with community stakeholders. The learning objectives of the project, as well as the details of the instructions for implementation are presented. Teaching Notes are also provided

KEDUDUKAN DAN FUNGSI LEGAL OFFICER DALAM PERSEROAN TERBATAS

Lemahnya praktik GCG (Good Corporate Governance) merupakan salah satu penyebab yang memperpanjang krisis ekonomi di Negara ini.   Maka dari itu penerapan dari Good Corporate Governance tidak dapat dilakukan secara parsial (keseluruhan) karena dibutuhkan pendekatan yang mendasar, selain kerangka kerja ekonomi, juga dibutuhkan kerangka kerja dari segi Legal. Untuk itu meski dilakukan secara normative penerapannya sebagai Governance system agar dapat diterima masyarakat investor dan merupakan keharusan dalam efisiensi dan profitabilitas, secara Legal juga dibutuhkan hukum yang mendukung dalam penerapannya.Maka, dengan mengacu pada SK Menteri BUMN mengenai penerapan GCG yang baik pada perusahaan, seluruh perusahaan yang berbentuk Perseroan, wajib menerapkan prinsip dari GCG tersebut agar di dalam perusahaan, terjadi transparansi dalam menjalankan perusahaan serta dapat melakukan tindakan Manajemen Resiko yang dapat muncul sewaktu-waktu.  Tindakan tersebut dapat diwujudkan oleh seorang Direksi dalam menjalankan kepengurusan perusahaan (PT), karena penerapan dari GCG tersebut  merupakan kewajiban yang harus dilakukan oleh perusahaan.  Prinsip dari GCG itu sendiri menekankan pada setiap perusahaan (PT) untuk dapat bersikap lebih kooperatif dan profesional dalam melakukan setiap usaha. Sehingga tercipta iklim persaingan yang sehat dalam berbisnis.Sehubungan dengan aturan mengenai Legal Officer yang hanya ada diatur dalam peraturan perusahaan (Internal perusahaan), itu semua di dukung oleh keterangan dalam pasal 103 UUPT yang menjelaskan bahwa seorang direksi dapat memberi kuasa tertulis kepada satu orang karywan Perseroan atau lebih untuk dan atas nama Perseroan melakukan “perbuatan hukum†tertentu sebagaimana yang diuraikan dalam surat kuasa. Kata kunci: Kedudukan dan fungsi, legal office

Neural Network Architecture for Credibility Assessment of Textual Claims

Text articles with false claims, especially news, have recently become aggravating for the Internet users. These articles are in wide circulation and readers face difficulty discerning fact from fiction. Previous work on credibility assessment has focused on factual analysis and linguistic features. The task's main challenge is the distinction between the features of true and false articles. In this paper, we propose a novel approach called Credibility Outcome (CREDO) which aims at scoring the credibility of an article in an open domain setting. CREDO consists of different modules for capturing various features responsible for the credibility of an article. These features includes credibility of the article's source and author, semantic similarity between the article and related credible articles retrieved from a knowledge base, and sentiments conveyed by the article. A neural network architecture learns the contribution of each of these modules to the overall credibility of an article. Experiments on Snopes dataset reveals that CREDO outperforms the state-of-the-art approaches based on linguistic features.Comment: Best Paper Award at 19th International Conference on Computational Linguistics and Intelligent Text Processing, March 2018, Hanoi, Vietna

Mobilising the Local Church for Social Justice and Reconciliation:

Social justice and reconciliation are inseparable, and both are inextricably linked to ethics, discipleship and ministry, that is, with the Christian walk. More precisely the evangelical church of the “global south” has lagged behind on their praxis with regard to this aspect. “What could be done to get the church involved in social justice and reconciliation in post-Apartheid South Africa?” What theological and other resources and assets could be mobilised in order for the church to address the issues of social injustice and reconciliation? While using the Baptist Union of Southern Africa as a case study, this article carefully investigates these important questions and other questions with wider theological/missiological implications for how we are to understand our Christian calling in the world. Further, this article argues that the church is by nature and by calling an indispensable agent for fostering social justice and reconciliation. Finally, it suggests that this be achievable only if all the church’s assets and resources are mobilised for the purpose of social justice and reconciliationChristian Spirituality, Church History and Missiolog

Demystifying the use of contractor employees in South Africa: a case study of Eskom KZN OU.

Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville.Many organizations employ external contractors in their daily business operations. The interactions between these host organisations and external contractors can either contribute to the success or failure of these organisations. Eskom’s Kwazulu-Natal Operating Unit makes use of several external contractors and this is the case in the Electrification Department. For the past five years, the department has not been able to achieve their sales quotas. Essentially, the more customers that get electrified the better returns of revenue for the organization. This study investigates the effectiveness of communication between management and contractors, how contractors are outsourced and the use of internal resources in relation to external resources. A survey was conducted among 200 employees chosen for the research in all areas within KZN with the goal of covering all areas within the province. The quantitative method was chosen for the survey. The survey instruments used was an emailed questionnaire with the utilization of a software called QuestionPro for feedback from the respondents. The data collected was analysed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). From the findings, the respondents tend to agree that management must maintain good communication with external contractors about organizational targets. Respondents also agreed that assessments must be done internally with more focus on skills and experienced contractors. There needs to be a good working relationship between internal and external resources, however there are pros and cons when these two are compared. Findings and recommendations are discussed and areas for further study identified

Credo

In our sad days it is a woman\u27s part To keep alive the things that ease the soul, All music and delight. It is her role To pour out lovely songs to fill the heart With tenderness again, and hopeful start The hymnal in the church; amid the whole Of dark, confusing time out of control To sing, and let not loveliness depart. Unfaltering faith is difficult to keep When futile tears fall on the changeless earth And still are dried by the recurrent sun. Mankind may perish if its women weep Too much, too long. We will allow no dearth Of Song; there is much singing to be done

Food, Expulsion, and the Polis in Aristophanes’ 'Birds'

This paper will argue that Aristophanes’ Birds repeatedly makes use of a conceptual connection between food and expulsive practices, such as φαρμακός ritual, exile, and the casting out of unburied or exhumed corpses. Food is prominent in accounts of some of these practices, and Aristophanes’ play shows that it is semantically connected to all of them. Euelpides’ initial speech casts him and Peisetaerus’ journey as a self-expulsion ἐς κόρακας (“to the crows”). The phrase wishes for an enemy’s corpse to be devoured by birds instead of receiving a proper burial. The birds behave exactly as expected, then, when they threaten to devour the ‘expelled’ Peisetaerus and Euelpides. Furthermore, as they do so, they use language reminiscent of Hipponax’s description of a φαρμακός-like figure. Later, the chorus issues a decree against Philocrates, a seller of birds to eat, comparing him to the tyrants and Diagoras the Melian.  Such decrees often acted as de facto expulsions and served notionally as a guard against tyranny and subversion of democracy. Peisetaerus’ plan to starve the gods with a λιμός Μήλιος (“Melian famine”) not only recalls Diagoras’ notorious impiety, for which he was exiled, but also resembles the expulsion of the personified Hunger in φαρμακός ritual and ostracism.  Intruder scenes, with their physical beatings designed to expel hungry and rapacious figures from the stage, also closely resemble these expulsive practices. In the play’s final scene, Peisetaerus turns the gods themselves into hungry intruders via the λιμός Μήλιος. To taunt their hunger, he roasts birds for subverting the democracy and so, ironically, commits the same crime as Philocrates as he becomes a tyrant at the end of the play. Brian V. Credo, Jr., is a PhD candidate at the University of Pennsylvania. His dissertation focuses on the relationship between Greek Old Comedy, ritual, and expulsion. This project originated in his undergraduate thesis at the University of Notre Dame, entitled A Goat Amidst Frogs: The Pharmakos Complex in Aristophanes’ Play. Some of his related research interests include the anthropology and critical theory of humor, ritual, and marginality. Keywords: expulsion, φαρμακός ritual, exile, intruder scene, λιμός Μήλιο

Township churches of Tshwane as potential change agents for local economic development: An empirical missiological study

This article contributes towards ascertaining the potential of township churches as change agents for local economic development (LED) in Tshwane. Five church leaders (i.e. two from Soshanguve and three from Hammanskraal) were engaged through personal interviews to gain insights from them about their churches’ praxes and mission orientations in relation to community building, including LED in Tshwane. Based on these personal interviews, it was established that these churches have assets as well as current ministries that could be steppingstones for LED. Township chChristian Spirituality, Church History and Missiolog