This study deals with the role that 'failure' plays in the lives of people, as seen from a pastoral-theological perspective. In this respect, a number of questions presented themselves, including; How the phenomenon known as 'failure' is viewed within the community of the secular sciences? How is the phenomenon known as 'failure' viewed from a Biblical point of view? Can 'failure' be reversed and turned into something beneficial? In the secular world, a 'failure' is seen as someone who does not live up to expectations, or to a person who continually make mistakes and who does not learn from the experience. There is scant room in the secular world for 'failure', and there is an enormous amount of pressure on individuals in society to be 'successful.' This peer pressure to conform to certain expectations carries with it a corresponding fear of 'failure', and therefore being rejected by society. Scripture would appear to view 'failure' in a more lenient light, but at the same time, carries a wider connotation to 'failure' than society does. The purpose of this study is to investigate what is meant by 'failure', both from a basis-theoretical and a meta-theoretical perspective, in accordance with Zerfass's model, in order to develop a counselling model, designed to assist counsellors in the counselling of people who suffer from the effects of 'failure'. The basis-theoretical part of this study found that Scripture does not recognise the phenomenon we call 'failure', apart from man missing God's mark, and sinning. The greatest, or worst form of 'failure' encountered in Scripture is indicative of the sinner not accepting the redemptive work of Christ, and being condemned to perish in eternal damnation. What is colloquially known as 'failure', Scripture treats as stepping stones to success and sanctification. The meta-theoretical part of this investigation brought up an interesting thought: that 'failure' was learned behaviour, a negative set of values that society impresses upon individuals to they must conform to. Where 'failure' is experienced, society teaches the person to cope with 'failure' by utilizing inherent strengths and negating weaknesses, rather than exploring the 'failure' in an endeavour to mine the salient values that are present. From an empirical research, using hermeneutic-phenomenological principles, a model was developed that is intended to assist the counsellor in reversing counselee 'failure' into success. The conclusion of this research is that while broader society may not have an answer to 'failure', pastoral-theology is perfectly positioned to assist with the counselling of people who deem themselves to be 'failures’. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Pastoral))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2005.

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The Design of structures under dynamic loading is a demanding subject in safety of engineering design since conventional static failure criteria are unable to deal with structures under transient loading. This work is a contribution to this significant phenomenon to investigate the response and failure of structures to pulse loading. An experimental rig has therefore been designed to achieve the target. A series of experiments has then been carried out to investigate the structural failure under pulse loading using a shock tunnel. A non-linear transient analysis of plates and cylindrical structures under pulse loading has also been performed using ANSYS finite element code in order to introduce a failure criterion for these specific conditions. A large-scale heat exchanger under pressure pulse loading was also analysed experimentally and numerically. The impulsive load has been chosen to be above the static design pressure to investigate the effects of impulsive load and its duration on the plate failure. A critical curve is presented to determine the critical pulse loading and its duration for structures. The relations between the transient pressure loading, its duration and the natural frequency of the structure are also explored. It is indicated that the value of the impulsive load on structures may exceed the static design pressure without structural failure. Both experimental work and numerical analyses suggest that the design criteria for structures under dynamic loading are more flexible than those under static loading in which no freedoms in deviation of any simple yield criterion exist. It is concluded that using a proper failure criterion for any specific problem can increase safe working region of the structures which leads to economical and safe dynamic design of structures.

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Hard disk drives function perfectly satisfactorily when used in a stable environment, but in certain applications they are subjected to shock and vibration. During the work reported in this thesis it has been found that when typical hard disk drives are subjected lo vibration, data transfer failure is found to be significant at frequencies between 440Hz and 700Hz, at an extreme, failing at only Ig of sinusoidal vibration. These failures can largely be attributed to two key components: the suspension arm and the hard disk. At non-critical frequencies of vibration the typical hard disk drive can reliably transfer data whilst subjected to as much as 45g. When transferring data to the drive controller, the drive's operations are controlled and monitored using BIOS commands. Examining the embedded error signals proved that the drive predominantly failed due lo tracking errors. Novel piezo-electric sensors have been developed to measure unobtrusively suspension arm and disk motion, the results from which show the disk to be the most significant failure mechanism, with its First mode of resonance at around 440Hz. The suspension arm movement has been found to be greatest at IkHz. Extensive modelling of the flexure of the disk, clamped and unclamped, has been undertaken using finite element analysis. The theoretical modelling strongly reinforces the empirical results presented in this thesis. If suspension arm movement is not directly coupled with disk movement then a flying height variation is created. This, together with tracking variations, leads to data transfer corruption. This has been found to occur at IkHz and 2kHz. An optical system has been developed and characterised for a novel and inexpensive flying height measurement system using compact disc player technology.

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This thesis explored two issues. Firstly, how participants would respond,in terms of task persistence and task enjoyment, to differing levels of success, when a task was presented to them with a mastery-focus (Experiments 1-5). Secondly, whether improving at task caused participants to enjoy tasks more than achieving a constant level of success (Experiments 6-10). Experiments 1-3 provided evidence that when participants were given the opportunity to persist with a task for as long as they wanted, they persisted longer after performing poorly. However, despite persisting longer, they did not enjoy the task. Experiments 4-5 adopted the same paradigm as Experiments 1-3, but included a second free-choice persistence phase where participants were unaware their behaviour was being monitored. In Experiments 4 and 5, participants who performed poorly persisted longer initially, but less during the subsequent free-choice phase. Again, those who performed poorly during the initial phase reported that they did not enjoy the task. It was suggested that neither the achievement-goal theories of Nicholls (1984) and Dweck (1986) nor Deci's (1975) theory of intrinsic motivation could adequately account for the persistence behaviours observed in the second persistence phase in Experiments 4 and 5. Instead, it was suggested that participants persisted because of the pleasure derived from solving the problems. Experiments 6-10 examined the role of improvement in task enjoyment. Experiments 6 and 7 were control studies intended to establish wheter the paradigm was appropriate to examine improvement. Experiments 8-9 showed that relative to achieving a consistent level of performance, improvement increased task enjoyment. However, this result was found only when participants did well; when they did poorly at a task, improvemenpt produced less enjoyment(Experiment 10). Both results can be explained if participants' expectations are taken into account as well as their rate of success. The final conclusions chapter discusses the types of achievement targets individuals might set themselves when what constitutes good performance at a task is ambiguous, and relates this analysis to the findings from all ten experiments.

Thiamin is a required coenzyme in the production of energy to fuel myocardial contraction. Therefore, thiamin deficiency (TD) may contribute to myocardial weakness by limiting the available energy for myocyte contraction. Previous studies report a wide range for the prevalence of TD in patients with heart failure (HF) (3% to 91%). These trials are limited by their small sample size, indirect measurement of thiamin status, exclusion criteria, and their focus on hospitalized patients. Therefore, this study determined the prevalence of TD in a large (n=100) group of ambulatory patients with HF, using high performance liquid chromotography. The prevalence of TD ([thiamin pyrophosphate (TPP)] ≤ 180 nM/l erythrocytes) was found to be 7%. TD was not related to furosemide use, dietary thiamin intake, severity of the HF, or age. More investigation into the factors that may influence development of TD in ambulatory patients with HF is warranted.

Thiamin is a required coenzyme in energy producing reactions that subsequently fuel myocardial contraction. Therefore, thiamin deficiency (TD) might contribute to the reduction in myocardial function observed in patients with heart failure (HF) by limiting the available energy and subsequently aggravating cardiac performance. While the prevalence of TD as well as the impact of supplementation has been examined in patients with HF, none of these studies to date has examined the impact of TD on clinical outcomes. Therefore, this study investigated the associations between erythrocyte [TPP] levels and outcomes in ambulatory patients with HF. Time-to-event probabilities were found to be not significant for acute decompensated heart failure, mortality, all-cause hospitalizations, arrhythmias, myocardial infarctions and other adverse events. Further investigations into the longer term impact of TD on outcomes and the effects of thiamin supplementation as an adjunct therapy in delaying the disease progression are needed.