Paradigmos sąvokos išklaida chronologiškai sekant T. Kuhno minties raidą. Aptariami trys paradigmos sąvokos raidos etapai ir kai kurios implikacijos, pavyzdžiui nebendramatiškumas ir sąntykis su Karlo Popperio kritiniu racionalizmu. / Thomas Kuhn's concept of paradigm is expounded by chronologically following his publications. Three different stages of development of the concept are analysed and then compared to Karl Popper's critical rationalism.

The relationship between Psychology and Theology has become an issue of increasing concern in recent years for the Christian community. With the growing complexities of cultural differences, the moral decline of society and its drift away from a Christian worldview, the pastoral ministry seems to be as challenging as ever. The problem about the relationship between theology and psychology is that there is growing confusion in today's Christian community about the best way to help people overcome their personal problems of living. In this regard some scholars believe that Christians should only submit to Biblical counselling, while others support psychotherapy, as long as it is integrated with Biblical principles and has a firm Scriptural foundation. In researching the literature on the subject, it was found that various theoretical models have been defined and described as attempts to scientifically justify the union of the above mentioned two points of view. In this thesis the viewpoints of four prominent groups of scholars about the subject are described and analysed in order to determine to what extent will it be possible to identify common denominators amongst their different models and to eventually establish if it is possible to formulate a synthesis about the commonalities so defined. The integration models of the following four prominent groups of authors about the subject were analysed: (1) Larry Crabb (1977); (2) William T. Kirwan (1993), (3) John D. 2 Carter & Bruce Narramore (1979) and (4) Eric L. Johnson & Stanton L. Jones, eds., (2000). These scholar's contributions were chosen for analysis because, from the research about the subject, it was found that these 4 groups of authors made some of the most significant scientific contributions about the integration of theology with psychology. Before attempting to formulate a pastoral paradigm out of a synthesis of the contributions of the aforementioned scholars, it was fundamentally important to distinguish between the 3 prominent views of man. Some scholars argue that man is a monistic being, while others defend a dichotomous view of man as consisting of a body and a soul. A third significant view describes man as consisting of three significant parts, namely a body, a soul and a spirit. In this thesis it was argued that the trichotomous view of man was the most correct way of defining the fundamental composition of man. According to the researcher an understanding of the trichotomous nature of man is important as it serves as a theological basis for pastoral counselling in order to clearly communicate the precise truths of the believer's union with Christ. In the last part of the thesis a practical pastoral paradigm was proposed based on the trichotomous view of man in which psychology and theology can be harmoniously integrated by means of a meta-systemic approach. The first phase of the paradigm focused on a model within which Psychotherapy can be applied while the second phase described Spirituotherapy as a model within which pastoral counselling can be applied. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Pastoral))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2005.

This thesis comprises four Sections: SECTION A An Introduction: This study has been done according to the article method. It consists of five articles in which the research results have been reported. All the articles form part of the overall objective and goals of the research project. Each article is a project in its own right as it also stands on its own; each one has its own research question, research goals, research methods, bibliography as well as unique content. At the end these articles along with the introduction at the beginning and the final conclusions at the end form part of the entire thesis. SECTION B Section B comprises the following articles: ARTICLE 1 is an expository approach on a selected core of Biblical references pertaining to the renewing of the mind. ARTICLE 2 discusses popular theoretical approaches pertaining to the renewing of the mind. ARTICLE 3 discusses the working of the human mind as well as provides information on left and right brain preferences and provides meta-theoretical perspectives on change. Good thinking (as a prerequisite of mind renewal) in order to ensure positive change is highlighted throughout the article. ARTICLE 4 is a qualitative empirical study existing of five interviews pertaining to the renewing of the minds in Christians. ARTICLE 5 Gives practice theoretical perspectives of the proposed model called Creative Practical Application (CPA) as a dynamic discipline in order to assist and support Romans 12:2 as an important paradigm for transformation/change in the Christian. SECTION C In this section the conclusions and further suggestions for related research have been stated. SECTION D Although each article has its own bibliography, a comprehensive bibliography of the whole research project has been given in this section. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Pastoral))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

This thesis comprises four Sections: SECTION A An Introduction: This study has been done according to the article method. It consists of five articles in which the research results have been reported. All the articles form part of the overall objective and goals of the research project. Each article is a project in its own right as it also stands on its own; each one has its own research question, research goals, research methods, bibliography as well as unique content. At the end these articles along with the introduction at the beginning and the final conclusions at the end form part of the entire thesis. SECTION B Section B comprises the following articles: ARTICLE 1 is an expository approach on a selected core of Biblical references pertaining to the renewing of the mind. ARTICLE 2 discusses popular theoretical approaches pertaining to the renewing of the mind. ARTICLE 3 discusses the working of the human mind as well as provides information on left and right brain preferences and provides meta-theoretical perspectives on change. Good thinking (as a prerequisite of mind renewal) in order to ensure positive change is highlighted throughout the article. ARTICLE 4 is a qualitative empirical study existing of five interviews pertaining to the renewing of the minds in Christians. ARTICLE 5 Gives practice theoretical perspectives of the proposed model called Creative Practical Application (CPA) as a dynamic discipline in order to assist and support Romans 12:2 as an important paradigm for transformation/change in the Christian. SECTION C In this section the conclusions and further suggestions for related research have been stated. SECTION D Although each article has its own bibliography, a comprehensive bibliography of the whole research project has been given in this section. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Pastoral))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

South African organisations face the challenge of creating organisations that will engage employees in ways that allow for the optimisation of their strengths. This can be achieved by following a strength-based approach (SBA). An SBA aims to achieve optimisation of human functioning, where talents and strengths are the focus and weaknesses are understood and managed. Although previous research suggests that an SBA has positive influences on individual and organisational outcomes, no instrument exists within the South African context that measures employees’ perception of the extent to which they believe their organisation makes use of their strengths and talents. Recently, a new scale was developed to address this need. However, no studies have been done to see how well the items of this scale function. The objectives of this research were to 1) conceptualise an SBA according to literature, 2) determine whether the items in the SBA scale are unidimensional, 3) to determine the internal validity and reliability of the new SBA scale, and 4) make recommendations for future research. A cross-sectional quantitative research design was used whereby online and hardcopy versions of the questionnaire were distributed to participants. A sample of 699 participants was collected from the Gauteng and North-West provinces. Rasch analysis was used to determine the reliability and validity of the items. Acceptable item reliability was found. Both the item and person separation indices were acceptable. Mean infit and outfit indices for both person and item were acceptable. The seven-point frequency-based Likert scale worked satisfactorily overall, although categories 0, 1, and 2 were under-utilised. Finally, the infit and outfit statistics for all eight items functioned satisfactorily, except for one item. Recommendations are made for practice as well as for future research. / Thesis (MA (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012

This thesis explores the possibility of the functional programming paradigm in the domain of hard embedded real-time systems. The implementation consists of re-implementing an already developed system that is written with the imperative and object oriented paradigms. The functional implementation of the system in question is compared with the original implementation and a study of code complexity, timing properties, CPU utilization and memory usage is performed. The implementation of this thesis consists of re-developing three of the periodic tasks of the original system and the whole development process is facilitated with the TDD development cycle. The programming language used in this thesis is C but with a functional approach to the problem. We conclusions of this thesis is that the functional implementation will give a more stable, reliable and readable system but some code volume, memory usage and CPU utilization overhead is present. The main benefit of using the functional paradigm in this type of system is the ability of using the TDD development cycle. The main con of this type of implementation is that it relies heavily on garbage collection due to the enforcement of data immutability. We find in conclusion that one can only use the functional paradigm if one has an over dimensioned system when it comes to hardware, mainly when it comes to memory size and CPU power. When developing small systems with scarce resources one should choose another paradigm.

The research reported in this thesis examines the relative contributions of top-down and bottom-up information during lexical access. I evaluate the Cohort Model of lexical access (Marslen-Wilson and Welsh, 1978; Marslen-Wilson and Tyler, 1980; and Marslen-Wilson, 1987) which specifies that the first stage in lexical access is fully autonomous and that during this stage all processing proceeds in terms of analysis of the acoustic-phonetic input. Implicit in this model is the assumption that bottom-up processing is immune to any effects of contextual or top-down information. I examine the extent to which listeners ever rely exclusively on bottom-up information during lexical access and investigate this issue empirically, by measuring effects of context on both the production and the perception of words in various contexts. I test the hypothesis that a word uttered in a constraining context will be acoustically indistinguishable from its competitors by, first, measuring one acoustic parameter (VOT) across constraining and non-constraining contexts and, then, examining the intelligibility of tokens of that parameter taken from the varyingly constraining contexts. The data from these experiments suggest that the realization of VOT is not an aspect of bottom-up information which would create problems for a bottom-up processor in terms of providing ambiguous acoustic-phonetic information. I then investigate whether bottom-up processing during lexical access is immune to effects of context. Following Grosjean (1980) and Tyler (1984), I utilize the Gating Paradigm. Using incongruous contexts, I argue that direct assessment of the contributions made by different information sources during lexical access can be made. By presenting bottom-up information which is inappropriate to the contextual (topdown) information, I evaluate the extent to which one information source is given priority over the other. I vary both the contextual constraints available to the listener and the acoustic clarity of bottom-up information. The observed pattern of listeners' identifications of the words suggested that whilst bottomup information was given priority, top-down information was available and was utilized during lexical access. I present data which support the working structure of the Cohort Model of lexical access. I conclude, however, that the model places disproportionate emphasis on initial bottom-up processing. It appears that top-down information is not prohibited from contributing to processing during the initial stage of lexical access.

This ethnographic study explores the experiences of Ivorian journalists in the context of the 2002-2009 crisis in Abidjan, the economic capital city of Côte d’Ivoire. I present material on the political affiliations of newspapers, the structure of the news industry, the attitudes of journalists, and certain aspects regarding the reception and dissemination of media texts in the streets of Abidjan. My interests lie in analysing the origins and the impacts of the accusations to which journalists of the written press are being subjected concerning their role in the Ivorian conflict. I explore how the crisis has been constructed and construed by and through media agents. I focus on the reflexive moments of journalists and on what their metadiscourses reveal about the context of news production in Côte d’Ivoire. Data was collected through participant-observation and interviews over 18 months of fieldwork in 2003, 2004-2005 and 2006 mainly in three newsrooms in Abidjan. This dissertation questions the emphasis placed upon the role of media in African conflicts, which I term the Rwandan paradigm. The Rwandan paradigm is the reductionist notion that mass media indoctrination plays a decisive role in mobilizing African audiences to commit acts of communal violence. Ultimately, I suggest two avenues to broaden our understanding of the intersection between communication and conflict: 1) a recognition of the complex agency of media producers and their audience; 2) an exploration of alternative media and public spaces.

The concept of strategic entrepreneurship has received increased attention over the past ten years. Viewed as the intersection of entrepreneurship and strategy, this field of research is populated by conceptual studies which focus mainly on the nature and perceived benefits of strategic entrepreneurship. Similarly, the study of entrepreneurship in a public sector context has gained increasing support in recent years, but also remains underexplored. To address these gaps, this thesis considers: What are the underlying elements and financial implications of strategic entrepreneurship in New Zealand’s state-owned enterprises [SOEs]? New Zealand’s SOE sector, comprising 17 government-owned, commercially focused organisations, is considered to be a prime subject for this research. Well known for their implementation of new public management [NPM], many New Zealand SOEs have also been publicly recognised as both innovative and entrepreneurial. The research question is addressed by first developing a preliminary framework of strategic entrepreneurship from literature on entrepreneurship and strategy. This framework is then examined in the context of case studies on activity which is entrepreneurial and/or strategic within 12 of the 17 SOEs operating in New Zealand as at 2006. Transcripts from a series of interviews, and publicly available documents are analysed thematically. SOEs’ financial statements over a five year period are also analysed. The thesis contributes in two broad areas. First, much-needed empirical support is lent to the concept of strategic entrepreneurship. Key elements of strategic entrepreneurship identified include opportunity identification, innovation, acceptance of risk, flexibility, vision, growth, and leveraging from core skills and resources such that existing knowledge and skills are transferred and applied to create new products, services, and markets. Important supporting elements identified include an open, flexible, and progressive culture, operational excellence, and cost minimisation. The nature of each of these elements is also investigated. A detailed understanding of the relationship between strategic entrepreneurship and wealth creation reveals various internal and external factors which may influence the nature and strength of the relationship. These factors include changes within the organisation, as well as changes in the economic and political environment, and are important influences on the resulting returns realised. Second, this thesis offers valuable evidence in support of emerging change in the public sector towards the adoption of strategic entrepreneurship. Support for the value of NPM is provided, with clear evidence of financial returns from New Zealand’s SOE sector. Further, a key finding is the structured and systematic approach to entrepreneurial activity within the context of NPM in several New Zealand SOEs. Such behaviour is referred to in this thesis as new public entrepreneurship. This form of activity offers the potential for competitive advantage and financial gain traditionally associated with entrepreneurial activity, but also limits the respective risks through its structured, systematic approach.

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