The value of conducting research around STEAM education (the amalgamation of the arts with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) rests in better understanding current practices and the challenges teachers face when creating, implementing, evaluating, and revising a STEAM curriculum. This ethnographic case study examines how teachers, across different disciplinary content areas, make, utilize, implement, and evaluate STEAM curricula for students to become critical thinkers and create authentic work products. The data consisted of semi-structured interviews, two focus groups, and several observations of four teachers in their planning and implementing STEAM curricula. In the first phase of the study, the researcher mostly observed the process of the participants. At the end of this phase all the participants came together in a focus group to discuss and share their process. In the second phase, the researcher examined how the participants would modify their processes based on their discussions with their colleagues. In addition, the researcher helped guide the teachers in applying these modifications to the STEAM process. The result of these sessions showed how the changes in teachers’ processes in creating, implementing, evaluating, and revising STEAM curricula created more opportunities for students to be critical and creative scholars. The findings from this study may help to inform researchers and educators on best practices to devise, execute, and evaluate STEAM lessons that have the potential to significantly impact students in their academic studies, careers, and futures.

Introduction: Carbapenems and colistin are the last-line antibiotics for treating Gram-negative bacterial infections. However, increasing reports of resistance to these antibiotics is being reported in clinical settings, the environment and in animals. In this paper, we describe the molecular epidemiology and resistance mechanisms of colistin and carbapenem resistance in clinical, veterinary, and environmental Enterobacterales isolates in Pretoria, South Africa. Method: One hundred VITEK®-2-confirmed colistin and carbapenem-resistant clinical isolates were collected from the departmental isolate bank at the National Health Laboratory Service. A total of 88 porcine (stool) and 11 environmental (effluents) samples were collected in November 2018 and again in March 2019 from a farm in Pretoria. Both the porcine and environmental samples were screened using Eosin methylene blue agar with colistin and ertapenem disks. All isolates were identified and a minimum inhibitory concentration of colistin and carbapenems was determined using the MicroScan® WalkAway system. Isolates resistant to colistin were confirmed by the broth microdilution method. Isolates phenotypically resistant to colistin and carbapenems were selected for whole genome sequencing to determine the resistome and phylogenetic trees were drawn to determine the relatedness of isolates. Results: A total of 275 Gram-negative isolates were identified from the clinical (100), environmental (57) and veterinary (118) samples using the MicroScan® WalkAway system. The MicroScan® WalkAway system’s minimum inhibitory concentration results for clinical isolates revealed 88% and 93% resistance to colistin and carbapenems, respectively. BMD was found to be more reliable in all isolates, and it recorded higher MICs (increased resistance) than the MicroScan® WalkAway system. Overall, colistin susceptibility was higher among animal isolates compared to the clinical and environmental samples. Genomic analysis identified several resistance genes associated with resistance among the isolates and the CTX-M family were the dominant resistance genes. Phylogenomic analysis demonstrated closer evolutionary relationship between EB008 (environment), SW10B (animals), and C080 and C084 (both humans) strains as well as with strains from the United States of America, Canada, China, Russia and Durban (South Africa). Conclusion: The study established multiple resistance genes from different antibiotics to mediate resistance in Enterobacterales isolates from humans, animals and the environment. The presence of carbapenemases in animals is alarming and poses a public health concern. Strains EB008 (environment), SW10B (animals) and C080 and C084 (both human) were phylogenetically related with strains from the United States of America, China and Durban (South Africa) more commonly. Therefore, One Health approach studies are significant to ascertain colistin and carbapenem transmission from human to animals/the environment and vice versa to combat increasing resistance in Enterobacterales. / Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2020. / National Research Foundation (NRF) / National Health Laboratory Service research grant / Medical Microbiology / MSc / Unrestricted

Although the Portuguese diminutive has been analyzed for centuries, there is a lack of descriptive experimental data regarding how native speakers form the diminutive including participants from each state in Brazil. For this study, 1,053 native speakers from each of the 26 states and the federal district of Brazil filled out an online survey, providing information about their age, gender, birth state, and current state of residence in Brazil. Participants selected the form(s) of the diminutive which they would use for 60 test words. Results indicate that the most influential factors in the formation of the diminutive are the age and state of origin of the participant, in addition to the final phone and stress of the word being diminutized. An apparent time shift in diminutive formation is seen in the diminutive endings of -inho and -zinho.

The main objectives of this diploma thesis are to introduce the building information model as an effective tool, helping at work with the buildings throughout their lifecycle and to consider its use for real estate valuation, from the point of view of individual valuation methods, used in Czech Republic. The real estate valuation methods and the functional principles of building information model, as well as its features, are described in the first part of the thesis. In addition, the first part of the thesis also deals with the model implementation conditions in selected countries of the world. The second part of the document contains consideration for model usage in the valuation practice. A practical demonstration of working with the model is also included in this thesis.

The thesis serves as a comparison of valuation processes, which are being used in the CZ and the US. It brings information about appraisal practice in the CZ and the US. It describes individual valuation approaches and definitions of important variables according to the available literature. Moreover, the thesis focuses deeper on market approach valuation. It shows differences in individual processes and approaches on the application of processes on selected example and then uses obtained differences to determine recommended changes. In shows different structures of appraisal reports in the conclusion too.

The content of the diploma work is the proposal of a new, operativelly, technically and economically appropiate procedure for the landing on the runway 10 for the airport LKTB.The work includes the valuation of the present status of the airport, the problems with capacity, technical equipment and the meteorological influence on it. According to the processing of the results and comparing the individual systems using in the present fot the precision approach ,the final proposal will be presented.

Ab den 1980er Jahren entwickelte Amartya Sen eine neue Wohlfahrtstheorie: den Capability Approach (Sen, 1979; 1985; 1992; 1999; 2009). Dabei ersetzen Capabilities und Functionings, d.h. das, was Personen tatsächlich in der Lage sind zu tun und zu sein, den traditionellen Einkommensansatz. Armut ist im Capability Approach das Unvermögen, ein bestimmtes Minimum an zentralen Capabilities zu erreichen, die benötigt werden, um das Leben nach den eigenen Vorstellungen zu gestalten. Der Capability Approach hat so viele interessante Eigenschaften, besonders in Bezug auf die Armutsmessung, dass er zunehmend Einfluss in der Wohlfahrtsökonomie gewinnt. Diese Entwicklung wird durch empirische Untersuchungen gefördert, die zeigen, dass dieser multidimensionale Ansatz zur Armutsmessung deutlich andere Ergebnisse generiert als der traditionelle Einkommensansatz (vgl. Klasen, 2000, Alkire und Santos, 2010, Figari, 2012). Der derzeitige multidimensionale Ansatz hat jedoch eine methodische Schwäche: Ungleichheit zwischen Armutsdimensionen wird entweder als Korrelationssensitivität definiert – womit Effizienz aber nicht Verteilungsgerechtigkeit berücksichtigt wird – oder als die Verteilung multipler Mangelerscheinungen in einer Gesellschaft – womit Verteilungsgerechtigkeit aber nicht Effizienz berücksichtigt wird. Die ersten beiden Kapitel dieser Dissertation widmen sich der Behebung dieser methodischen Schwäche. Dazu wird Ungleichheit zwischen Dimensionen zunächst als „korrelationssensitive Verteilung multipler Mangelerscheinungen in einer Gesellschaft“ definiert. Die ersten beiden Kapitel operationalisieren diese erweiterte Definition für den Fall ordinaler und kardinaler Armutsindices. Im Einzelnen wird ein neues Axiom für den ordinalen sowie den kardinalen Fall eingeführt, das das Ausmaß, mit dem ein Ungleichheitsfördernder Tausch Armut sinken (oder steigen) lässt, von der Beziehung zwischen den Armutsdimensionen abhängig macht. Diese Neuerung wird benutzt um eine neue Klasse ordinaler bzw. kardinaler Armutsindices herzuleiten. Diese zwei Klassen sind die ersten additiven Armutsindices die in der Lage sind, sowohl Ungleichheit als auch Korrelationssensitivität zu erfassen. Das dritte Kapitel nutzt das deutsche sozio-ökonomische Panel um zwei ordinale Armutsindices für Deutschland vorzuschlagen, die auf der zuvor entwickelten Methode basieren: den „Deutschen Korrelationssensitiven Armutsindex“ und den „Subjektiven Korrelationssensitiven Armutsindex“. Die beiden Indices werden mit dem offiziellen deutschen Armutsmaß, der Armutsgefährdungsquote, über Dimensionen, Regionen und über die Zeit hinweg verglichen. Die Resultate zeigen vor allem eines: die signifikanten Unterschiede in der Beurteilung von Armut und Armutstrends die durch die verschiedenen Indices versursacht werden und den hohen Mehrwert den die Operationalisierung des Capability Approachs darstellt.

The purpose of this literature study is to take a closer look at whether and how the intercultural approach can contribute to an inclusive classroom environment and how the intercultural approach affects multilingual students. In order to be able to answer these questions, we analyzed six different international articles that deal with intercultural learning from different perspectives. The research has been conducted in Australia, USA, Ecuador, Turkey and Norway. The results show that the intercultural approach has a strong positive impact in multicultural classrooms, as it can strengthen the community and thus create a more inclusive classroom environment. Research shows that empathy is an important part of intercultural awareness, along with mutual curiosity and respect. The literature shows that language and identity are strongly connected. The intercultural perspective sees multilingualism as an asset, and therefore this mindset can strengthen the students´ linguistic self-esteem, and give them a higher status in a linguistic varied environment in a society where a monolingualism norm prevails.

Interviewers are a principal source of error in quantitative surveys. While surveys are often self-administered (e.g. in online surveys), it is often required to administer these face-to- face. This is the case, for example, in census surveys in low-income areas where there is little internet penetration, like that of the quality-of-life surveys presently being conducted in multiple countries through a residential door-to-door approach (Carr et al., 2018). In such situations, the social interaction between the interviewer conducting the survey and the interviewee is likely to introduce bias into the survey data collected. Interviewer effects (IE) can influence both item non-response and answer quality, i.e., participants not providing the true answer (Harling, et al., 2019). In an attempt to gain more representative data, this study conducted an exploratory analysis on the possible antecedents and consequences of interviewer effects using the Living Wage survey presently being conducted in South Africa, as the study context. To this end, I examine the systematic biasing effects associated with deploying the same group interviewers (n = 10), of the same ethnicity, age, and of equal gender distribution across five sampling areas in Cape Town in a quasi-experimental design (n = 282). This study highlighted that each interviewer is associated with a unique set of systematic bias that varies dependent on the survey item type. Sensitive items requiring respondents to disclose personal information were the most prone to bias, followed by interviewer-referencing and attitudinal items sequentially. Furthermore, this study found that gender differences in the interview had a marginal influence on the attitudes respondents are willing to share. I hope to contribute to an understanding and critical consideration of the antecedents and consequences of deploying human interviewers for collecting quantitative surveys, especially in a context where ethnic, gender and political differences are loaded in social interactions and are likely to contribute to respondents obscuring their responses.

One of the most pressing needs society has in 2012 is addressing the plight of the 4 billion people, globally, who live at the bottom of the economic pyramid. Unless initiatives are undertaken to alleviate poverty and hardship in this portion of society, human potential will be wasted and the economic burden on the rest of society to support them will remain significant. In South Africa a significant portion of the population live at the bottom of the pyramid. One initiative to alleviate poverty and hardship is to enable bottom of the pyramid people who are excluded from formal financial services to access to them. By accessing formal financial services they would be able to safely save and borrow money. They would also be able to escape exploitative informal financial practices. Technology has the potential to expand access to financial services and reduce the cost of service provision. To date, however, it has not delivered on its promise of expanding financial inclusion at the bottom of the pyramid. Intermediaries, too, have been used to increase access to financial services but have also not successfully expanded financial inclusion at the bottom of the pyramid. Understanding which factors would allow these approaches to realize their potential has the ability to meaningfully contribute to addressing the plight of people at the bottom of the pyramid. This study brings together the potential of technology and the role of intermediaries to model expanding financial inclusion at the bottom of the pyramid in South Africa. The Technology Acceptance Model is used as a basis to propose an extended TAM model that explains adoption of technology enabled financial services through an intermediary at the bottom of the pyramid in South Africa. The proposed model is validated using structural equation modelling with data collected in a national survey in South Africa. The extended TAM model successfully explains more than 90% of the behavioural intention of financially excluded people at the bottom of the pyramid to adopt financial services through an intermediary. Using the findings, a strategic approach to expanding financial inclusion at the bottom of the pyramid is proposed. / Thesis (PhD(Eng))--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Industrial and Systems Engineering / unrestricted