Browsing by Subject "Values"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Open Access
    Accurate Recovery of H i Velocity Dispersion from Radio Interferometers
    (2017) Ianjamasimanana, R; Blok, W J G de; Heald, George H
    Gas velocity dispersion measures the amount of disordered motion of a rotating disk. Accurate estimates of this parameter are of the utmost importance because the parameter is directly linked to disk stability and star formation. A global measure of the gas velocity dispersion can be inferred from the width of the atomic hydrogen (H I) 21 cm line. We explore how several systematic effects involved in the production of H I cubes affect the estimate of H I velocity dispersion. We do so by comparing the H I velocity dispersion derived from different types of data cubes provided by The H I Nearby Galaxy Survey. We find that residual-scaled cubes best recover the H I velocity dispersion, independent of the weighting scheme used and for a large range of signal-to-noise ratio. For H I observations, where the dirty beam is substantially different from a Gaussian, the velocity dispersion values are overestimated unless the cubes are cleaned close to (e.g., ˜1.5 times) the noise level.
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    Open Access
    Exploring the factors affecting employee motivation to be innovative on product development: A case study for Woolworths South Africa
    (2021) Truter, Tessa; Mathews, Ozayr
    The global business industry is greatly affected by revolutionised human knowledge that requires a continued understanding of human preferences, needs and wants. Motivation to innovate must be understood when marketers aim for business success. Business success is seen in customer satisfaction and employee performance. The starting point for success is the miraculous ideas of employees. These ideas can be anything from the creation of a product or service to the execution of that product or service. Exploring the factors affecting the motivation to innovate on product development may lead marketers to business success by increased profitability, a bigger customer base, and retaining motivated skilled employees with the ability to innovate. This research is based on the South African multinational retailer Woolworths, with the focus on food and design packaging. A qualitative research approach was followed where data was collected from 11 participants using semi-structured individual face-to-face in-depth interviews and structured questionnaires. This study followed a manual thematic approach in an inductive manner. The needs of the participants in this study were categorised into three sections: Need for power, need for achievement and need for affiliation. This study also introduced McClelland's extended needs, and the motive for self-expression stood out among the cohort, confirming their creative skills. With the aid of individual components, domain-relevant skills, intrinsic task motivation and creativity stimulants, the study was able to link the presence of creativity to motivation and innovation. It confirmed that once the creativity intersection combines with organisational components there is a motivational synergy that produces innovation. The results of the study further indicated that internal motivation factors had a greater impact than external factors. As per organisational components, business values were shown to have an influence on the development of a product design. Legislation policies were deemed beneficial to forced creative thinking, yet it was also regarded as a limitation that can be improved through creative flexibility. Other factors that emerged were organisational socialisation, aligned stakeholder communication, sufficient market research, and respecting the emergence of seasonal trends. Future research should explore ways of improving organisational components that act as external influences on individual creative thinking. Moreover, future research should explore how effective training can help stakeholders learn and acquire the rights needs together with the continuous support from the business.
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    Open Access
    Living heritage in the historic urban landscape: a case study of the Grand Parade Market
    (2020) Wilson, Wendy M; Roux, Naomi
    This study examines the long-established bi-weekly market held on Cape Town's Grand Parade to see if it constitutes living heritage. If it does, how is it connected with the urban landscape it inhabits, and how might it be acknowledged or safeguarded? Heritage practice in South Africa has long focused on the fabric of the historic built environment (not on the people using it or the uses to which it is put) with conservation methods tailored to that end. The importance of living heritage—or intangible cultural heritage—is increasingly accepted, particularly as a form of redress for the imbalance caused by the prioritisation of coloniser history. There is a growing sense of urgency, driven by those whose living heritage has been overlooked or ignored, to address this. In this study, I combine on-the-ground analysis of today's Wednesday/Saturday market drawn from interviews with traders, with a deep reading of various official and academic archives. This is interpreted through the most recent theoretical thinking regarding living heritage, together with the international charters, national laws and local policies that apply to the real world of Cape Town today. I determine that the market is, indeed, living heritage, and that it is important to recognise it is such. I argue that the heritage binary of intangible and tangible represents a false dichotomy, and that it is essential to consider heritage as a whole, with living heritage being indivisible from the urban landscape in which it exists. However, I identify the potential pitfalls that formal protection might bring to a living, dynamic system, and find that the significance values of tangible and living heritage require different actions to conserve and safeguard them. I show how, while the will to identify and acknowledge South Africa's living heritage has been expressed at the highest policy levels, the ensuing legislation, implementation policies and working practices of heritage practitioners are insufficient to deliver on this. I suggest that, to reflect this better in our management of heritage resources, a more trans-disciplinary approach is needed, one with processes and methodologies that accommodate diversity in the interpretation of cultural value and emphasise stakeholder involvement.
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    Valuing EQ-5D-Y: the current state of play
    (2022-07-06) Devlin, N; Pan, T; Kreimeier, S; Verstraete, J; Stolk, E; Rand, K; Herdman, M
    Background For nearly a decade, value sets for the EQ-5D-Y were not available, reflecting challenges in valuing child HRQoL. A methodological research programme led to publication of a valuation protocol in 2020, which was rapidly taken up by local study teams. By the end of 2022, between 11 and 17 EQ-5D-Y value sets will be available, more than for any other child HRQoL measure. It is timely to review the experience of those using the protocol to identify early learnings and remaining issues where more research is needed. Methods In June 2021, the EuroQol Group organised a three-day workshop, bringing together all those involved in EQ-5D-Y value set studies and related methodological research concerning EQ-5D-Y and valuation. Workshop discussions were captured by note taking and recording all sessions and online chat. A narrative summary of all sessions was produced and synthesised to identify points of agreement and aspects of methods where uncertainty remains. Results There was broad agreement that DCE is working well as the principal valuation method. However, the most appropriate means of anchoring the latent scale values produced by DCE remains unclear. Some studies have deviated from the protocol by extending the number of states included in TTO tasks, to better support modelling of DCE and TTO. There is ongoing discussion about the relative merits of alternative variants of TTO and other methods for anchoring. Very few studies have consulted with local end-users to gauge the acceptability of methods used to value EQ-5D-Y. Conclusions Priority areas for research include testing alternative methods for anchoring DCE data; exploring the preferences of adolescents; and scale differences in values for EQ-5D-Y and adult EQ-5D states, and implications of such differences for the use of EQ-5D-Y values in HTA. Given the normative elements of the protocol, engaging with HTA bodies and other local users should be the first step for all future value set studies. Value sets undertaken to date are for the three-level EQ-5D-Y. However, the issues discussed in this paper are equally relevant to valuation of the five-level version of EQ-5D-Y; indeed, similar challenges are encountered valuing any measure of child HRQoL.