Validation of key relationships in an extended service-profit chain model in the South Africa retail industry context.

The purpose of the study was to evaluate an extended conceptual model depicting hypothesised relationships between employee climate, customer value and financial performance. Questionnaires assessing employee experienced climate and customer-experienced value were completed by all the employees (more than 1200) and more than 2000 customers of a single retail company operating almost 100 stores in Southern Africa. The major findings were that some of the components of employee-experienced climate are positively related to customer experienced value in terms of both product and relationship quality. There was no significant relationship between customer-experienced value and the financial performance of the organisation

Dietary intake of first- and third-year female dietetics students at a South African university

Objective: A survey was undertaken to evaluate and compare dietary intakes of first- and third-year female dietetics students. Design: This was a cross-sectional survey. Setting: The University of Pretoria (UP) was the site of the survey. Population: The study encompassed first- (2012–2015) and third- (2012–2017) year female dietetics students (N = 368). Outcome: Dietary intake data from multiple-day weighed food records were analysed on nutrient, food group and meal and snacking pattern levels. Results: Recorded energy intakes of participants (n = 105 first years, n = 166 third years; response rate: 73.6%) were below Estimated Energy Requirements. Across year groups, intakes exceeded and fell below the Acceptable Macronutrient Distribution Range for fat and carbohydrates respectively; however, third years consumed cereals, grains and starchy vegetables more often. Over 50% of first and third years exceeded Estimated Average Requirements of respectively 3 and 6 of 10 tested micronutrients. Third years recorded higher (all p < 0.001) intakes of protein, magnesium, calcium, zinc and vitamin A than first years. Similarly, their Nutrient Adequacy Ratios were higher (all p < 0.001) for magnesium, calcium and vitamins A, B6 and B12. Average Mean Adequacy Ratios were 70% (first years) and 77% (third years). The year groups differed in terms of food group intake. The number of daily eating occasions decreased over weekends for first and third year students, yet intakes of energy (p < 0.05) and fat (p < 0.001) were higher over weekends. Conclusions: Amidst likely under-recording and/or under-eating, UP female dietetics students’ intakes of some micronutrients may be low. Recorded intakes of third years exceeded those of first years. Recorded nutrient intake improved from the first to the third year of the study in dietetics students.https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/ojcn20Human NutritionStatistic

Profits Over Patriotism: Black Market Crime in World War II Sydney

This thesis examines the multi-faceted phenomenon of black market crime in World War II Sydney. Using previously classified archives, coupled with oral sources and newspaper articles I provide a complete survey of this phenomenon. As a concept the black market was a social construct with a level of stigma attached to offenders that would not exist in peace time. This was moral policing. I begin by discussing the relationship between the geography and morals of the city. Both women and men in Sydney related to the black market differently. I outline and evaluate the official response to the problem. I also examine broader community attitudes in relation to this issue. The research provided here should form the basis for a more comprehensive understanding of white-collar crime and the moral regulation of behaviour

Fluctuating Nematic Elastomer Membranes: a New Universality Class

We study the flat phase of nematic elastomer membranes with rotational symmetry spontaneously broken by in-plane nematic order. Such state is characterized by a vanishing elastic modulus for simple shear and soft transverse phonons. At harmonic level, in-plane orientational (nematic) order is stable to thermal fluctuations, that lead to short-range in-plane translational (phonon) correlations. To treat thermal fluctuations and relevant elastic nonlinearities, we introduce two generalizations of two-dimensional membranes in a three dimensional space to arbitrary D-dimensional membranes embedded in a d-dimensional space, and analyze their anomalous elasticities in an expansion about D=4. We find a new stable fixed point, that controls long-scale properties of nematic elastomer membranes. It is characterized by singular in-plane elastic moduli that vanish as a power-law eta_lambda=4-D of a relevant inverse length scale (e.g., wavevector) and a finite bending rigidity. Our predictions are asymptotically exact near 4 dimensions.Comment: 18 pages, 4 eps figures. submitted to PR

Strategies for Controlled Placement of Nanoscale Building Blocks

The capability of placing individual nanoscale building blocks on exact substrate locations in a controlled manner is one of the key requirements to realize future electronic, optical, and magnetic devices and sensors that are composed of such blocks. This article reviews some important advances in the strategies for controlled placement of nanoscale building blocks. In particular, we will overview template assisted placement that utilizes physical, molecular, or electrostatic templates, DNA-programmed assembly, placement using dielectrophoresis, approaches for non-close-packed assembly of spherical particles, and recent development of focused placement schemes including electrostatic funneling, focused placement via molecular gradient patterns, electrodynamic focusing of charged aerosols, and others

Die beroepsoriëntasie van professionele rekeningkundiges tydens die vroeë beroepsjare.

The career orientation of professional accountants during the early career stage. The purpose with this study was to conduct research into the career orientations of aspiring and qualified persons in the accounting profession. Schein's Career Orientation Inventory was administered to 221 respondents in the early career stage and in different phases of Involvement in the profession. Managerial skill featured as the most prominent career orientation. It was also evident that respondents who had had occupational experience measured highest on the same orientation, i.e. managerial skill, irrespective of their phase within the early career stage. Furthermore, there were indications that career orientation differentiation increased in accordance with occupational experience

The role of stereopsis in virtual anatomical learning

The use of virtual learning environments in the medical field is on the rise. An earlier experiment [Luursema, J.-M., Verwey, W.B., Kommers, P.A.M., Geelkerken, R.H., Vos, H.J., 2006. Optimizing conditions for computer-assisted anatomical learning. Interacting with Computers, 18, 1123–1138.] found that a combination of computer-implemented stereopsis (visual depth through seeing with both eyes) and dynamic exploration (being able to continuously change one’s viewpoint with respect to the objects studied in real-time) is beneficial to anatomical learning, especially for subjects of low visuo-spatial ability (the ability to form, retrieve and manipulate mental representations of a visuo-spatial nature). The present experiment investigated the contribution of computer-implemented stereopsis alone to anatomical learning. Two groups with a similar distribution of visuo-spatial ability were formed; one group studied a 3D computer model of the human abdominal anatomy in a stereoptic condition, the other group studied the same anatomy in a biocular condition (both eyes exposed to the same image). Although visuo-spatial ability was the most important variable predicting anatomical learning, computer implemented stereopsis provided a significant benefit for one of the post-tasks assessing this learning

Optimizing conditions for computer-assisted anatomical learning

An experiment evaluated the impact of two typical features of virtual learning environments on anatomical learning for users of differing visuo-spatial ability. The two features studied are computer-implemented stereopsis (the spatial information that is based on differences in visual patterns projected in both eyes) and interactivity (the possibility to actively and continuously change one's view of computer-mediated objects). Participants of differing visuo-spatial ability learned about human abdominal organs via anatomical three-dimensional (3D) reconstructions using either a stereoptic study phase (involving stereopsis and interactivity) or using a biocular study phase that involved neither stereopsis nor interactivity. Subsequent tests assessed the acquired knowledge in tasks involving (a) identification of anatomical structures in anatomical 2D cross-sections (i.e. typical Computed Tomography pictures) in an identification task, and (b) localization of these cross-sections in a frontal view of the anatomy in a localization task. The results show that the stereoptic group performed significantly better on both tasks and that participants of low visuo-spatial ability benefited more from the stereoptic study phase than those of high visuo-spatial ability