I studien undersöks de inslag av gehörs- och musiklära som förekommer inom enskild instrumentalundervisning på gymnasiet. Studien baseras på videoobservationer i fyra instrumentlärares klassrum med deras respektive elever. Det är en ordinarie lektion som observerats där gehörs- och musikteoretisk kommunikation studerats. I resultatet redogörs ett förvånansvärt högt användande av gehörs- och musikteoretiska inslag i undervisningen. Lärare och elever kommunicerar med varandra genom ett gemensamt musikaliskt språk. Resultatet redogör även lärarnas förmåga att i stor utsträckning kombinera olika kommunikativa medel för att förmedla kunskap till sina elever.

Au croisement de la sinologie, de la philologie, de l’histoire, de la musicologie, de l’organologie et de la pratique instrumentale, cette recherche se donne pour objet d’approfondir notre connaissance de la facture et des techniques de jeu de la cithare chinoise qin sous la dynastie des Tang (618-907) en traduisant et analysant des sources peu exploitées de cette période, à savoir le traité Tang Chen Zhuo zhifa 唐陳拙指法 (Techniques de jeu [du qin] par Chen Zhuo des Tang) et 1468 poèmes évoquant cet instrument. En complément d’autres sources anciennes, l’étude du corpus des poèmes précise notamment l’origine des matériaux utilisés pour le qin, l’usage d’accessoires, l’identification de luthiers amateurs et professionnels, la constitution du répertoire, l’emploi et l’évolution des partitions.La traduction et édition critique du Tang Chen Zhuo zhifa sert de support à un travail d’inventaire et d’analyse typologique des gestes décrits dans ce traité. Les techniques de jeu de l’époque s’y révèlent dans leur étendue et leur diversité.Afin d’en faciliter leur compréhension, plusieurs doigtés font l’objet des reconstitutions filmées, conservées sur le DVD en annexe. Des analyses d’acoustique musicale effectuées sur une sélection de techniques se sont également avérées riches d’enseignements en révélant les fondements concrets et subtils sous-jacents au jeu du qin à l’époque des Tang. / At the intersection of sinology, philology, history, musicology, organology and instrument playing, this research aims at broadening our knowledge of how the qin Chinese zither was made and played throughout the Tang dynasty (618-907). The research draws on often overlooked or untapped sources of information from this period such as the Tang Chen Zhuo zhifa 唐陳拙指法 treatise (Qin Playing techniques by Chen Zhuo) and 1468 poems in which the instrument is referred to.Study of the body of poems and ancient texts sheds light on the origin of the materials used to make the instrument and how accessories were used, drawing a distinction between amateur and professional instrument makers and explaining how a repertoire is built and how sheet music was read and evolved over time.The translation and critical edition of Tang Chen Zhuo zhifa serve as a basis for an inventory and typological analysis of the techniques described in the treatise, which illustrates the wide range and different styles of playing. Some of the fingerings were filmed and recorded on a DVD included here in appendix. Analyses of the musical acoustics of a selection of techniques provide valuable insights into both the groundings and the subtlety of qin playing during the Tang period

This master’s thesis deals with the design of a digital piano. This increasingly popular musical instrument offers possibilities not available in an acoustic piano (outputting sound into headphones, utilizing sample libraries, recording, use of sheet music in digital form and more). From technical standpoint, it attempts to closely mimic the qualities of traditional instruments, both in its tactile feedback and sound quality. The aim of this work was to design a solution which would starkly differentiate from the very conservative classical design without being overly extravagant. The main focus is therefore on aspects of visual appearance, with emphasis on ergonomics, and an outline of the technical solution.

This work presents a class of models in asset pricing, whose underlying has dynamics of Affine jump diffusion type. We first present L´evy processes with their properties. We then introduce Affine jump diffusion processes which are basically a particular class of L´evy processes. Our motivation for these is driven by the fact that many financial models are built on them. Affine jump diffusion processes present good analytical properties that allow one to get close form formulas for a wide range of option pricing. The approach we use here is based on the paper by Duffie D, Pan J, and Singleton K. An example will show how incorporating parameters such as the volatility of the underlying asset in the model, can influence the resulting price of the financial instrument under consideration. We will also show how this class of models incorporate well known models, specially those used to model interest rates dynamics, like for instance the Vasicek model. / Dissertation (MSc (Mathematics of Finance))--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Mathematics and Applied Mathematics / unrestricted

On-going research in recent years has shown quality of product and service, as perceived by customer, relative to competition, to be the single most important factor contributing to organizational well-being. Quality of product and service also presents one of the most significant opportunities for corporate differentiation. A major requirement for the successful management of quality is therefore effective measurement. In the case of physical goods, progress has been made over a long period. However, in the case of services, real advances have only occurred within the past decade. The importance of service quality is also highlighted by the fact that most businesses today are losing customers due to its inadequacy, rather than poor products. Indeed, from the customer's point of view, services and products probably do not exist in a dichotomy, but, rather, along a spectrum. Therefore, the measurement of service quality is critical, not only in traditional service organizations, but in manufacturing situations as well. The development of the SERVQUAL questionnaire in 1988, offered researchers, perhaps for the first time, an apparently reliable and valid instrument for the measurement of service quality. However, to date the instrument has not been subjected to rigorous testing for reliability and validity in South Africa, across a range of service organizations, within a typology. In this study, the SERVQUAL instrument was used to measure service quality across a range of firms within the Larsson-Bowen contingency framework, under South African conditions. Its main objectives were to assess its reliability and validity in these circumstances. It was found that SERVQUAL performed well across all organizations within the Larsson-Bowen framework, under South African conditions, with regard to reliability, convergent and nomological validity. Its construct validity proved to be less sound, and it was not found to possess discriminant validity. It is suggested that this is less attributable to South African circumstances than to the nature of the organizations. In cases of low diversity of demand, the instrument appears to capture the essence of service quality less effectively. Means of overcoming this in future studies are suggested, as well as other directions for research in the area of service quality measurement

This thesis is concerned with a problem in the interpretation of non-western art: the iconography of the raven rattle, a carved ritual object of widespread distribution on the Northwest Coast of North America. Iconographic analysis (after Panofsky) involves identifying cultural themes and concepts associated with artistic motifs. Because of the relative scarcity of recorded primary sources of interpretation, the method adopted in this analysis has been to infer meanings from relevant cultural contexts and data. Relevant data have been judged to be museum notes, ethnographies, and myths and relevant contexts, the ceremonies in which the rattle was used. The problem has been to identify the individual motifs appearing on the rattle with associated themes and concepts, and, because the rattle is a complex image, to interpret their interrelationship within the context in which the rattle was used: initiation ceremonies presided over by chiefs. For the dominant motifs on the rattle I have argued the following interpretations: 1. The "reclining figure motif" on the back of the rattle represents the guardian spirit quest, in which the reclining figure is the novice, the protruding tongue stands for the passage of power, and the animal at the other end of the tongue identifies the source of power. 2. The "raven" at the head of the rattle refers to the origin of daylight, an event of key significance in Northwest Coast cosmology. 3. The creature on the belly of the rattle represents a trapped, wealth-bringing, supernatural, sea monster. These interpretations subsume the more specific identifications that have been made by ethnographers and informants of the objects on the rattle. Within the context in which the raven rattle was used, I have suggested that the interpretations relate to each other as follows: the origin of daylight marks the beginning of the social and natural order, of the guardian spirit quest, and of reciprocity. The sea monster on the belly is a symbol of controlled supernatural power and wealth — or the fruits of the successful quest. The relationship of these associations to the chiefs who used the rattle, is that the chief was both wealth-bringer to his tribe and had access to the "controlled use of supernatural power. This he exerted on behalf of the social order in initiation ceremonies. These conclusions indicate that the raven rattle was a significantly general symbol whose thematic referents were assumptions basic to Northwest Coast culture. In reaching these conclusions, the utility of the iconographic approach, as adapted and applied to an analysis of images in Northwest Coast art, has been demonstrated. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

Power system harmonics are always an important issue in power networks as they can cause many negative impacts, such as equipment thermal stress, on installations within power networks. Recently, with the increasing connections of power electronic devices based Renewable Energy Source (RES) and High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) transmission applications, harmonics in power networks, especially high frequency harmonics (>50th order or 2.5 kHz) are on the rise. Currently, the majority of conventional VTs, such as Wound-type Voltage Transformers (WVT) and Capacitor Voltage Transformers (CVT), are widely installed and used in High Voltage (HV) and Extra High Voltage (EHV) power networks for voltage measurement. Since most of them were mainly designed to measure voltage with the required accuracy at the fundamental frequency (i.e. 50Hz in the UK), they are limited to measuring high frequency harmonics due to the coupling of their internal inductive and capacitive elements. To achieve high frequency harmonic measurements, voltage measurement devices with wide frequency bandwidths are required. Recently, non-conventional VTs, such as optical voltage transducers, are commercially available, which could provide accurate voltage measurements over a wide range of frequency. However, before they can be considered by any power utilities, their frequency response performances must be tested at a rated fundamental voltage with required minimum harmonic injections from 100Hz to 5 kHz. This must require a test system which should be capable of providing a rated fundamental voltage up to 400kV with controllable harmonic injections at required levels from 100Hz to 5 kHz. Therefore, the objective of this project is to design and implement such a test system in the National Grid (NG) HV laboratory at the University of Manchester. However, the design and the implementation of such a test system bring many challenges; for instance, a lack of adequate equipment and considerable power to provide the required harmonic injections above 0.5% to the test object.In this thesis, an Instrument Voltage Transformer Frequency Response (VTFR) test system with three different voltage power source designs is presented; The voltage power source designs are: (i) Design 1 is based on a single power source inductive coupling method to provide both a rated fundamental voltage and controllable harmonics; (ii) Design 2 is based on two separate voltage power sources inductive coupling method to provide both a rated fundamental voltage and controllable harmonics; and (iii) Design 3 is based on two separate voltage power sources capacitive coupling method to provide both the rated fundamental voltage and controllable harmonics. A hybrid approach, which combines the VTFR test system with both the voltage power sources Design 2 and 3, is proposed for testing the frequency response of any type of VTs at their rated fundamental voltages with 1% harmonic injections from 100Hz to 5 kHz. The proposed VTFR test system with voltage power source designs were firstly validated at a relatively low voltage of 33kV in the HV laboratory. Then three different VTFR test systems were constructed based on available equipment for testing VTs from 11kV to 400kV. An 11kV, a 33kV WVT and a 400kV WVT and a 275kV CVT were tested. The test results were analyzed, compared and discussed. The models of the test systems were also established and simulated. Simulation results were analysed, compared and discussed.

Networks of ground-based and satellite borne instruments to measure ultraviolet (UV) sunlight and total column ozone have greatly contributed to an understanding of increased amounts of UV reaching the surface of the Earth caused by stratospheric ozone depletion. Increased UV radiation has important potential effects on human health, and agricultural and ecological systems. Observations from these networks make it possible to monitor total ozone decreases and to predict ozone recovery trends due to global efforts to curb the use of products releasing chemicals harmful to the ozone layer. Thus, continued and expanded global monitoring of ozone and UV is needed. However, existing automatic stratospheric ozone monitors are complex and expensive instruments. The main objective of this research was the development of a low-cost fully automated total column ozone monitoring instrument which, because of its affordability, will increase the number of instruments available for ground-based observations. The new instrument is based on a high-resolution fiber optic spectrometer, coupled with fiber optics that are precisely aimed by a pan and tilt positioning mechanism and with controlling programs written in commonly available software platforms which run on a personal computer. This project makes use of novel low-cost fiber optic spectrometer technology. A cost advantage is gained over available units by placing one end of the fiber outdoors to collect sunlight and convey it indoors, thereby allowing the spectrometer and computer to be placed in a controlled environment. This reduces the cost of weatherproofing and thermal compensation. Cost savings also result from a simplified sun targeting system, because only a small pan and tilt device is required to aim the lightweight fiber optic ends. Precision sun-targeting algorithms, optical filter selection, and software to derive ozone from spectral measurements by the spectrometer are a major contribution of this project. This system is a flexible platform which may be adapted to study other atmospheric constituents such as sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxides, and haze.

The purpose of this study was to develop a parent report form instrument congruent with the philosophy of child-centered play therapy. The study sought to develop an instrument with acceptable levels of construct validity, reliability, sensitivity to clinical attitudes and relationships, and responsiveness to intervention. The Child Interpersonal Relationships and Attitudes Assessment (CIRAA) and the Child Behavior Checklist (CBC) and the Parenting Stress Index (PSI) were administered to 136 parents of children aged 3 to 10. The children of the parents sample consisted of 90 males and 46 females. Exploratory factor analysis was conducted for construct validity. Parallel analysis was conducted to determine the number of factors to retain. The factor solution explained 53.86% of the variance, which is an acceptable amount of the variance. Cronbach's alpha was conducted for total scale and all subscales. Reliability scores for the total score and subscales were acceptable, with an overall reliability coefficient of .93. A Pearson's r was conducted for concurrent validity between the instrument, the CBC, and the PSI, with Pearsons' r of .75 and .74 respectively. Paired-sample t-tests using the pretest and posttest scores of the instrument in development examined the responsiveness of the instrument to play therapy intervention at the same level as the CBC and PSI. ROC curve analysis, indicated acceptable discrimination of clinical scores and adaptive scores, with a clinical score being generated from the analysis. It is the first parent-report form developed for child-centered play therapy, and provides an efficient and philosophically consistent instrument for child centered play therapists to use in clinical and research settings.

Background: Previous research has identified four distinct developmental stages associated with organizational learning in high-performing hospital units: identity and ownership, team and respect, accountability and support, and reliability and sustainability. We designed a research instrument to measure these constructs. The purpose of this thesis was to establish the content and predictive validity of this instrument.Methods: The Organizational Learning Development Instrument (OLDI) consists of a total of 35 items in Likert-scale format. Item-level and instrument-level content validity were assessed using three cycles of cognitive interviewing with 28 nurses, and eight expert ratings. The OLDI was administered to nurses in Magnet® hospitals via a web-based survey. National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators (NDNQI) and Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) reports were used for comparison of hospital performance. Predictive validity was tested using multiple linear regression. Based on a power analysis for multiple linear regression, reaching 80% power, with a medium effect size of 0.15, an alpha of 0.05, and five predictor variables, the target sample size was 92 hospital units.Results: Results from 63 inpatient units in 11 Magnet® hospitals were used. The scale- level content validity for this instrument was 0.95 and item-level content validity index scores ranged from 0.86 to 1.0, suggesting excellent content validity. No significant relationships were found between OLDI results and NDNQI measures. Significant correlations (P<.05) were found between several OLDI constructs and HCAHPS composites.Discussion: Correlations with HCAHPS scores help validate the OLDI, as well as the theory underlying the instrument. The OLDI may not have predicted NDNQI measures due to a lack of instrument sensitivity or because NDNQI results are strongly influenced by other factors. Nurse managers can use the OLDI to predict unit performance related to patient satisfaction and to determine actions that may improve unit performance. Replicating this study with a larger sample size and more diverse hospital performance and more uniform unit type could further validate this instrument.