Hidden In Plain Sight: Development And Testing Of A Model To Evaluate Political Leadership Tactics

This thesis analyzes the kinds of verbal and nonverbal signals elites manifest to show leadership qualities. Launching from Max Weber’s conceptual framework of charisma as a power term and Harold Lasswell’s study of propaganda, this study takes a multidisciplinary approach to studying political leadership with elements of communication methodology and an ontological basis in evolutionary psychology. The study’s goal is to offer a framework for defining and evaluating the diverse signal patterns employed by political elites in three real-life situations. These are the Malta Summit, the 1992 Virginia Presidential Debate, and the 2012 South Carolina Republican Presidential Primary. The cases were chosen because they display a diverse set of signal variations during different types of interactions. The three case studies are evaluated by measuring frequency and patterns of occurrence of the five different interaction constructs (indicator of interest, indicator of disinterest, demonstration of high value, demonstration of low value, and compliance testing) to explain different interaction patterns. A simple frequency distribution of the different signals during a given interaction is used to display the empirical findings and to compare patterns across the case studies. This study reveals that the presence of DLV (demonstration of low value) signals weaken an elite’s position in relation to other elites and the public while the presence of DHV (demonstration of high value) signals strengthen an elite’s position. It is largely the presence, absence, and frequency of these two signals that determines who conveys leadership qualities effectively regardless of leadership style. Studying the signaling patterns of political elites would allow scholars to understand better the kinds of signal patterns and signal frequencies that are used in different types of leadership styles and norm ranges for signals including for political elites belonging to different cultures and subculture

Exploring teachers' self-regulated learning in Aceh

The purpose of this study was to explore how teachers in Aceh self-regulate their learning. Realizing that teacher quality is one of the main factors of the quality of education, the Indonesian government is also concerned about this issue. One of the programmes that was initiated by the government is the teachers certification programme. The programme is expected to increase teacher quality and teachers' allowances. However, the results of a research revealed that teacher certification has no impact on student' achievement. In addition, certification is still at the level of increasing teachers' living standard rather than teachers' performance. Also, the requirement to have professional and pedagogical competencies is still far from the minimum average (55). The latest result of the national teacher competency test in 2015 was below the minimum average standard (53), and Aceh was in the three lowest positions out of 34 provinces in Indonesia. Besides the programmes, which were initiated by the government, the ability of teachers to self-regulate their learning is essential to help teachers develop their professionalism. The present case study is a qualitative research conducted in the three districts of Aceh province from the beginning of October to the end of December 2016. The data were collected through face to face semi-structured interviews. 28 teachers from three private schools in Aceh that are under one foundation participated voluntarily in this study. The data were analyzed by firstly coding, based on the elements of self-regulated learning processes, grouping the coded sentences to each thematic phase (forethought, performance, and self-reflection), interpreting and discussing using the theoretical framework underlying self-regulated learning. The results indicated that not all of the teachers in the three schools performed all the phases of self-regulated learning, which were linked to each other. In the forethought phase, the goals set by the teachers were to master the subjects they teach and to have students' understanding. Those who were indicated to set more goals strategically performed their learning and had high self-efficacy. Moreover, they also did reflection on their learning. As teachers' learning in the workplace context cannot be separated from their teaching practice, it is indicated that teachers were not completely self-regulated their learning, but externally self-regulated from the tasks assigned to them. We also found that teachers' experience and gender did not significantly show differences in the way teachers self-regulated their learning

An investigation of contemporary public building design with particular reference to disabled peoples' design needs and designer awareness.

The hypothesis presented in this study is to test the theory that designers do not give adequate consideration to the needs of people with disabilities and that they perceive of people with disabilities as a separate minority who require 'special' provision. Within this context it is suggested that building designers would be more able to serve the needs of people with disabilities if building design education incorporated a more holistic and user-responsive syllabus. The research project, designed to test the above proposition, falls into two principal Sections. Section 1, developed as an inter-disciplinary study, drew documentary and research evidence from a wide variety of fields. The evidence, culled from fields that are largely considered disparate and unconnected, was then examined in the light of the relationships which became apparent from the adoption of a broad, sociological and epistemological approach. The etiology of building design as it relates to the needs of people with disabilities, once developed, informed the methodology of the second, empirical Section, Section 2, which was three-tiered. The first stage of Section 2, comprising a base-line survey, was conceived with a view to gauging not only the degree of congruence between designers' perceptions of need and actual need as expressed by disabled building users, but current demands in terms of patterns of building use, accessibility and expectations, and likely trends in the future. The survey was designed to operate within a holistic framework that, by means of stages two and three of Section 2, examined the access awareness of architecture schools, and the effectiveness of a series of incremental educational techniques formulated to familiarise design students with the design requirements of a heterogeneous public. Functioning as a bridge and conduit between the user and building designer, the broader contextual approach, comprising the sum of the three stages, thereby facilitated the participation of both parties, with the initial building user survey informing the later surveys of designer awareness. The overall findings and recommendations thus arise from the fusion of the epistemological and empirical evidence derived from the two Sections

Healing Logics

Scholars in folklore and anthropology are more directly involved in various aspects of medicine—such as medical education, clinical pastoral care, and negotiation of transcultural issues—than ever before. Old models of investigation that artificially isolated folk medicine, complementary and alternative medicine, and biomedicine as mutually exclusive have proven too limited in exploring the real-life complexities of health belief systems as they observably exist and are applied by contemporary Americans. Recent research strongly suggests that individuals construct their health belief systmes from diverse sources of authority, including community and ethnic tradition, education, spiritual beliefs, personal experience, the influence of popular media, and perception of the goals and means of formal medicine. Healing Logics explores the diversity of these belief systems and how they interact—in competing, conflicting, and sometimes remarkably congruent ways. This book contains essays by leading scholars in the field and a comprehensive bibliography of folklore and medicine.https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/usupress_pubs/1066/thumbnail.jp

Agricultural Terracing in the Fiji Islands. (Volumes I and II).

Agricultural terraces form a distinctive element in the cultural landscape of Fiji. These skillfully fashioned earthworks were developed for the irrigated cultivation of one specific cultigen--taro (Colocasia esculenta), a long domesticated edible aroid. Constructing pondfields on slopes represents an intensification of production, with taro yields responding favorably to higher levels of labor input. In Fiji, irrigated terraces on the leeward side of larger islands also served to overcome seasonal conditions of drought or soil moisture deficits. Nearly all of these intensive agrosystems have been abandoned. But the carefully sculpted hillsides endure, and serve as poignant reminders of past travail. Taro terracing in Fiji shares many design characteristics with terracing found elsewhere in the Pacific, most notably the tarodieres of New Caledonia. A case study considers the location, extent, and cultural-historical significance of the largest and most aggregated set of agricultural terraces ever constructed in Fiji. Neglected for more than a century, these gardens were built along contours on open hillsides in a dry rainshadow area of northern Viti Levu. Their location on the northern flanks of the Nakauvadra Mountains, traditionally considered the most sacred region in the entire archipelago, provides a mythico-religious dimension to the investigation. Culture change induced by European contact, imposition of colonial authority and control over land use, and the establishment of a plantation economy along with subsequent changes in diet and food preferences, have rendered these intensive agricultural landforms obsolete. A second case study examines one of the few irrigated taro terrace systems still operative in Fiji. Located on the remote southern island of Kadavu, the gardens at Ravitaki display the indigenous technology required for the delivery and control of water to hillside pondfields. Although villagers cite the advantages of overcoming drought and cyclone hazards, irrigation is not required for growing taro in this region. Hence, these terraces are more of an expression of culture than an adaptation to adverse environmental conditions. Communal labor organization and ceremonial and ritual purposes of production are also important factors contributing to the persistence of agricultural terracing in the Fiji Islands

Mission impossible?:introduction and transfer of employee-oriented CSR in multinational SMEs

Dit proefschrift behelst een studie bij zeven multinationale bedrijven in het MKB naar de invloed van het waardensysteem van de eigenaar-directeur op inrichting en uitvoering van het bedrijfsstelsel van arbeidsrelaties. De op anderen gerichte waarden van de eigenaar-directeur bepalen de mate waarin zij/hij werknemers als legitieme stakeholders ziet wier belang als doel nagestreefd moet worden omdat hun welzijn door het handelen van het bedrijf beïnvloed wordt. Vanuit op zichzelf gerichte waarden bepaalt de eigenaar-directeur op grond van de macht van werk nemers om de resultaten van het bedrijf te beïnvloeden in hoeverre hij/zij hun belangen moet waarborgen als middel om de bedrijfsresultaten te verbeteren. Voor de ondernemers wordt een goed werkend bedrijfsstelsel van arbeidsrelaties gekenmerkt door een informeel en flexibel organisatieklimaat waarin de bedrijfsverantwoordelijkheid voor een goed arbeidsbestaan tot uitdrukking komt en dat hun concurrentievoordeel bevordert. Mede doordat de vrijheid om het personeelsbeleid naar eigen inzicht in te richten in Nederland gering is door overheidsregulering en collectieve arbeidsovereenkomsten, vinden zij formele, transparante inrichting van dit onderdeel minder belangrijk. Zij willen dan ook het Nederlandse organisatieklimaat in hun buitenlandse vestigingen invoeren terwijl ze het personeelsbeleid aan de daar heersende omstandigheden aanpassen. Hierin zijn zij slechts gedeeltelijk succesvol omdat de basisvoorwaarden – wederzijds vertrouwen en effectieve externe bescherming van werknemers – ontbreken. Werknemers in binnen- en buitenland blijken een informeel op vertrouwen gebaseerd organisatieklimaat te waarderen maar vinden een formele en transparante inrichting van het personeelsbeleid belangrijker. Een maatschappelijk verantwoorde inrichting van het bedrijfsstelsel van arbeidsrelaties wordt dan ook gekenmerkt door een formeel en transparant HR instrumentarium gecombineerd met een informeel en flexibel organisatieklimaat gebaseerd op vertrouwen

Science curriculum implementation in Botswana.

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:DXN032640 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Philosophy and the Turn to Religion

Originally published in 1999. If religion once seemed to have played out its role in the intellectual and political history of Western secular modernity, it has now returned with a vengeance. In Philosophy and the Turn to Religion, Hent de Vries argues that a turn to religion discernible in recent philosophy anticipates and accompanies this development in the contemporary world. Though the book reaches back to Immanuel Kant, Martin Heidegger, and earlier, it takes its inspiration from the tradition of French phenomenology, notably Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-Luc Marion, and, especially, Jacques Derrida. Tracing how Derrida probes the discourse on religion, its metaphysical presuppositions, and its transformations, de Vries shows how this author consistently foregrounds the unexpected alliances between a radical interrogation of the history of Western philosophy and the religious inheritance from which that philosophy has increasingly sought to set itself apart.De Vries goes beyond formal analogies between the textual practices of deconstruction and so-called negative theology to address the necessity for a philosophical thinking that situates itself at once close to and at the farthest remove from traditional manifestations of the religious and the theological. This paradox is captured in the phrase adieu (à dieu), borrowed from Levinas, which signals at once a turn toward and a leave-taking from God—and which also gestures toward and departs from the other of this divine other, the possibility of radical evil. Only by confronting such uncanny and difficult figures, de Vries claims, can one begin to think and act upon the ethical and political imperatives of our day

A framework for guiding the interdisciplinary design of mHealth intervention apps for physical activity behaviour change

The global pandemic of noncommunicable diseases and its associated premature mortality rates and socioeconomic burden have led to increasingly intensified efforts towards designing and delivering health promotion interventions aimed at addressing the leading modifiable health risk behaviours, such as physical inactivity. Developing physical activity behaviour change interventions that target individuals at the dual intra-interpersonal socioecological levels of health promotion has become a key objective worldwide. Digital and mobile technology is revolutionising the ways in which health behaviour change interventions are delivered to individuals across the world, with mobile health applications (mHealth apps) increasingly recognised as a powerful means of promoting physical activity behaviour change. However, with the growth and opportunities of mHealth apps, come several design challenges. Key design challenges concern the integration of theory, the incorporation of evidence-based behaviour change techniques, the application of persuasive systems design principles, and the importance of multi- and interdisciplinary collaborative design, development and evaluation approaches. These key challenges influence the output product design and effectiveness of mHealth physical activity behaviour change intervention apps. There exists a paucity of approaches for guiding and supporting the multi- and interdisciplinary collaborative design, development and evaluation of mHealth physical activity behaviour change intervention apps. To address this gap, this research study proposes an Interdisciplinary mHealth App Design Framework, framed by a novel boundary object view. This view considers the diverse communities of practice, boundary objects and supporting artefacts, process activities, and knowledge sharing practices necessary and relevant to the design of effective mHealth physical activity behaviour change intervention apps. The framework’s development is guided by a Design Science Research (DSR) approach. Its core components are based on the findings of a critical theoretical analysis of twenty existing multi- and interdisciplinary digital health development approaches. Once developed, the framework is evaluated using a qualitative DSR linguistic interpretivist approach, with semi-structured interviews as the research instrument. The thematic analysis findings from interviews with thirty-one international academic researchers and industry practitioners informs the iterative modification and revision of an enhanced Interdisciplinary mHealth App Design Framework, constituting the main DSR artefact contribution of the research study. In addition, four theoretical contributions are made to the mHealth intervention app design body of knowledge, and a practical contribution is made through the provision of guideline recommendations for academics and industry practitioners. Methodological contributions are also made in terms of applying DSR, adopting a hybrid cognitive reasoning strategy, and employing a qualitative linguistic interpretivist approach to evaluation within a DSR project.Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Commerce, Information Systems, 202