In this thesis, repair and positioning are examined with respect to second language learners. The data employed in this analysis consists of oral examinations taken by students of German. These data comprise 22 tape recordings averaging 10 minutes in length. The students’ level of German language proficiency is understood to be intermediate. Conversation analysis is the methodology used to analyse the recorded spoken data. The data is first discussed within the context of research on focus on form, including research on learner uptake. To provide new insights in this discussion, the analysis goes further to include the perspective of positioning theory, in particular the aspect of different storylines. Taking interactional repair as the focus of discussion, my analysis shows that form cannot always be strictly separated from meaning when it comes to repair; it also proves that positioning theory plays a considerable role in relation to both repair initiation by teachers and students as well as their reactions to it. Thus, the participants’ positioning has a significant effect on why some repair moves are likely to occur while others are not.

ABSTRACT The manner in which we design and build our communities can affect our physical and mental health. When we think about urban planning, we reflect on the form and arrangement of community, of urban, city and town planning. Urban form looks at the integration of land use and explores a complex range of the built and social environment: the environment, infrastructure, people, form and economics. The research recognizes cultural behaviours and activity patterns that affect air quality and environmental conditions; a lack of physical activity, community cohesion, highlights safety issues, and places individuals at risk for health illness. The research evaluates the built form of the neighbourhood community and asks ‘What are the attributes of a healthy community’? The research will verify the extent to which the neighbourhoods selected in the study replicate these attributes and focus on how these neighbourhoods could be improved from a ‘healthy city’ perspective. Key urban form features related to healthy communities focus on the relationship between land use mix, network connectivity and street design, site design, and density. Sustainable planning of communities and efficient land use planning are relevant to healthy communities with the trend towards increasing population density. While the research reinforces the connection between built form and public health planning, it also provides future direction for urban form policy; with improvements towards street connectivity, non-motorized transportation, expansion of regional trail and cycle networks, increasing transit access, encouraging mixed land use and greater land density to shorten travel distances. The research provides a basis for future studies in Canadian growth policy and healthy neighbourhood form, with significance as a Southwestern Ontario study.

Detta examensarbete utreder hur information kan anpassas textuellt och formges efter en specifik målgrupp. Informationen behandlar explosiva och energetiska material, var de används och av vilka, och hur hanteringen sker säkert. Arbetsprocessen har innefattat metoder för textanalys, fokusgrupp och jämställt språk och har lett fram till ett designförslag. De texter som har analyserats har dels varit tagna från examensarbetets samarbetspartner, KCEM, och dels tagna från andra branscher som genom målgruppsanpassat material informerar om sina möjligheter. En fokusgrupp sattes samman av ett representativt urval av målgruppen. Under ett strukturerat gruppmöte fick de kommentera informationsmaterial som riktar sig till dem som homogen grupp. Informationen har anpassats för hela målgruppen genom att tillämpa en metod för jämställt språk. De teorier som sedan använts för att anpassa slutprodukten textuellt och grafiskt är pragmatisk textlingvistik, metadiskurs och visuell metadiskurs. Den pragmatiska textlingvistiken har bidragit med en helhetssyn på språk som ett verktyg för att överföra intentioner och budskap. Metadiskurs och visuell metadiskurs har sedan tillämpats för att överföra teorin till praktiken.

In this thesis, repair and positioning are examined with respect to second language learners. The data employed in this analysis consists of oral examinations taken by students of German. These data comprise 22 tape recordings averaging 10 minutes in length. The students’ level of German language proficiency is understood to be intermediate. Conversation analysis is the methodology used to analyse the recorded spoken data. The data is first discussed within the context of research on focus on form, including research on learner uptake. To provide new insights in this discussion, the analysis goes further to include the perspective of positioning theory, in particular the aspect of different storylines. Taking interactional repair as the focus of discussion, my analysis shows that form cannot always be strictly separated from meaning when it comes to repair; it also proves that positioning theory plays a considerable role in relation to both repair initiation by teachers and students as well as their reactions to it. Thus, the participants’ positioning has a significant effect on why some repair moves are likely to occur while others are not.

ABSTRACT The manner in which we design and build our communities can affect our physical and mental health. When we think about urban planning, we reflect on the form and arrangement of community, of urban, city and town planning. Urban form looks at the integration of land use and explores a complex range of the built and social environment: the environment, infrastructure, people, form and economics. The research recognizes cultural behaviours and activity patterns that affect air quality and environmental conditions; a lack of physical activity, community cohesion, highlights safety issues, and places individuals at risk for health illness. The research evaluates the built form of the neighbourhood community and asks ‘What are the attributes of a healthy community’? The research will verify the extent to which the neighbourhoods selected in the study replicate these attributes and focus on how these neighbourhoods could be improved from a ‘healthy city’ perspective. Key urban form features related to healthy communities focus on the relationship between land use mix, network connectivity and street design, site design, and density. Sustainable planning of communities and efficient land use planning are relevant to healthy communities with the trend towards increasing population density. While the research reinforces the connection between built form and public health planning, it also provides future direction for urban form policy; with improvements towards street connectivity, non-motorized transportation, expansion of regional trail and cycle networks, increasing transit access, encouraging mixed land use and greater land density to shorten travel distances. The research provides a basis for future studies in Canadian growth policy and healthy neighbourhood form, with significance as a Southwestern Ontario study.

The first part is a study of an ecological model with one herbivore and $N$ plants. The system has a new type of functional response due to the speculation that the plants compete with each other and have different levels of toxin which inhibit the herbivore's ability to eat up to a certain amount. We first derive the model mathematically and then investigate, both analytically and numerically, the possible dynamics for this model, including the bifurcation and chaos. We also discuss the conditions under which all the species can coexist. The second part is a study in the normal form theory. In particular, we study the relations between the normal forms and the first integrals in analytic vector fields. We are able to generalize one of Poincare's classical results on the nonexistence of first integrals in an autonomous system. Then in the space of 2n-dimensional analytic autonomous systems with exactly n resonances and n functionally independent first integrals, we obtain some results related to the convergence and generic divergence of the normalizations. Lastly we give a new proof of the necessary and sufficient conditions for a planar Hamiltonian system to have an isochronous center.

Houston is the only major city in North America without zoning. The growth of Houston illustrates a traditional free market philosophy in which land use zoning is seen as a violation to private property and personal liberty. This dissertation explores how the lack of zoning has an impact on land use and urban form in Houston. It is based on a theoretical framework derived from economics and public policy theories for institutional analyses of land development controls. The dissertation uses cluster analysis integrating socioeconomic factors from census data to select three case study neighborhoods, and then applies GIS to analyze their urban form spatial characteristics with spatial data from Houston Planning Department. It also uses qualitative methods such as archives and documentations for the three neighborhoods. The study investigates the change of urban form in three case study neighborhoods over two decades. It also explores how local land use policies made by both the local government and non-governmental sectors shape urban form in Houston. The study results show that despite the city’s lack of zoning, local land use regulatory policies made by the municipality have significant influence on urban development. Additionally, civic and private organizations such as super neighborhoods and homeowner associations fill the gaps left by the lack of land use zoning. These two aspects contribute to land use planning and urban form of the city. Houston presents a contradiction of limited government intervention and public investments and subsidies. Land use controls by private contract and by government legislative intervention are not mutually exclusive or immutable. The study finds that it is difficult to achieve mixed race and income neighborhoods, even without zoning. Equity goals are not met in market approaches. Deed restrictions might be better at facilitating property sales and maintenance than at improving community welfare and governance. From the theoretical perspective, the study argues that a spectrum of market solutions and planning approaches at the ends are more relevant than the bipolarity view. Equity goals are not met in market approaches. For welfare and rights, public planning intervention is necessary. The market might provide physical land use diversity, but it fails to support socioeconomic diversity.

Sustainable development is one of the greatest challenges to urban planning in the 21st century. Current patterns of urban development, called byspecially sprawl, and human activity have led to environmental degradation and created a serious threat to continued human existence and sustainability of life on earth. The United States, concerns over consequences of urban sprawl have led to increased advocacy for more compact and traditional urban development. The compact city is now widely accepted as the most effective solution to sustainable urban form. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between sustainability and urban form. In order to achieve the aims of this study, 50 cities in the United States are analyzed and compared with the 2008 sustainable city rankings from the organization SustainLane, using four categories of urban form indicators: densities, mode of commute to work, mean travel time to work & traffic congestion cost, and planning & land use. This research is based on the hypothesis that a sustainable city has a compact city form. According to the SustainLane 2008 US sustainable city ranking high ranked cities were considered more sustainable cities and low ranked cities were regarded as less sustainable cities. Using SPSS’s correlation analysis tool, I studied the relationship between overall city ranking and four categories of urban form the indicators. The overall finding of the analysis of the relationship between each indicator and urban form yields mixed results. The result of this research found that that sustainable city and urban form has several correlations; densities, mode of commute to work, and planning and land use have a strong positive correlation with sustainable city; however, mean travel time to work and traffic congestion cost have a negative correlation with SustainLane’s sustainable city ranking. These results mean that sustainable cities which were high ranked cities in the SustainLane 2008 US sustainable city ranking have a high density, sustainable mode of commute to work, and strong planning and land use. Particularly, when a mixed land use, centeredness, and street connectivity were combined, the planning and land use category of indicators shows stronger correlation with sustainability. According to this result, these findings suggest that when the planning and land use indicators are combined synergistically compact urban form can be an indicator of a more sustainable city.

Thèse--Paris.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 310-318). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.