The aim of this study was to assess the electrical performance of the Cahora Bassa HVDC scheme. For practical reasons a database was developed to hold and analyse the performance data. Microsoft® Access 2002 relational database management system was chosen for this work. The principle of simplicity and flexibility were used in the design of the database. The Apollo year 2002 faults data was populated into the database. The database stored the information in a format that enables the user to extract results and the information required by Ciqre, The Ciqre Working Group 14 collects performance information from all the participating HVDC schemes around the world annually. The Apollo converter station's 2002 performance data was compared to other similar HVDC schemes that submitted to Cigre in the year 2002. In addition performance trends were drawn from similar schemes that submitted to Cigre over the past years. The Apollo performance data is quite comparable to other similar schemes in 2002 and over the past years. / Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2005.

Ce mémoire porte sur le rôle du geste musical dans le développement de styles musicaux devenus syncrétiques. Il s’attarde à définir dans le détail le style de guitare populaire assiko propre aux Bassa du Cameroun du Sud lequel est représenté internationalement par le guitariste et percussionniste traditionnel Atna Njock. Grâce à une approche dialogique et participative, les techniques du jeu assiko sont explorées et comparées à des exemples de jeu de guitare européenne, afro-américaines et africaines. Les influences qui définissent le jeu d’Atna découlent de la culture Bassa et de son histoire marquée par l’influence coloniale et missionnaire, mais sont aussi alimentées par la «philosophie» (voire la spiritualité) et le passé musical de l’artiste. L’approche participative fournit une perspective émique, c’est-à-dire interne à la culture, de la gestuelle et de la structure du jeu assiko même si nous confrontons les propos du musicien à notre propre regard analytique. La comparaison avec divers instruments de percussion auxquels Atna a été initié montre comment ceux-ci ont forgé son jeu guitaristique. Son rôle de « garant » de la tradition musicale Bassa influence son approche et se manifeste par une préoccupation particulière pour l’« authenticité » dans la reproduction des rythmes d’un « langage » musical donné. Ses liens avec la culture Bassa, s’expriment notamment par le biais de sa reproduction du style de jeu de son maître, Jean Bikoko « Aladin ». La contribution particulière d’Atna à la technique de guitare de Bikoko est comprise comme un ajout à la lignée ancestrale. Une analyse d’un morceau du répertoire assiko issu du plus récent album d’Atna illustre d’ailleurs comment son incorporation de styles « modernes » reproduit les processus traditionnels en intégrant des éléments culturels étrangers. / This master’s thesis is concerned with the role of musical gesture in the development of musical styles that have become syncretic. It seeks to define in detail the popular guitar style of assiko, particular to the Bassa of Southern Cameroon, as represented internationally by the guitarist and traditionally initiated percussionist, Atna Njock. Through a dialogic and participative approach, the techniques that underlie assiko guitar playing are explored by comparison with European, African American, and African examples. The influences that define Atna’s playing are contextualized within Bassa culture, with its troubled history of colonial and missionary influence, and elaborated by an account of his particular musical philosophy (or spirituality) and background. The participatory approach provides an emic perspective, meaning internal to the culture, of assiko playing technique and structure while subjecting the musician’s statements to our own analytical scrutiny. The comparison with the various percussion instruments on which Atna was initiated demonstrates how these instruments shaped his guitar playing. His role as “guarantor” of Bassa musical tradition underlies his approach to music, which manifests as a particular concern for “authenticity” in the reproduction of the rhythms of a given musical “language”. His connection to Bassa culture is ultimately expressed through his reproduction of the playing style of his master, originator of modern assiko, Jean Bikoko “Aladin”. Atna’s particular contribution to Bikoko’s guitar technique is conceived as adding to the ancestral lineage. An analysis of a current assiko piece from Atna’s most recent album demonstrates how his incorporation of “modern” styles reflects traditional processes of incorporating foreign cultural elements.

Algebraic geometric codes were first introduced by V.D.Goppa . They were well recognized and developed by Tsfasman, Vladut and Zink because they have parameters better than Gilbert-Varshmov bound and thus giving rise to Tsfasman Vladut-Zink bound. While the codes given by Ihara, Tsfasman, Vladut and Zink have complicated construction, Garcia and Stichtenoth on the other hand gave an explicit construction of codes attaining Tsfasman-Vlasut-Zink bound using the terminology of function fields. In coding theory one of the challenging problem is to find a sequence of cyclic codes that are asymptotically good. While this has not been achieved, Stichtenoth generalized cyclic codes to transitive codes and constructed a sequence of asymptotically good transitive codes on algebraic function fields over quadratic finite fields that attain Tsfasman-Vladut-Zink bound. In the case of cubic finite fields, Bezerra, Garcia and Stichtenoth constructed a tower of function fields over cubic finite fields whose limit attains a lower bound and the codes constructed over this tower turns out to be asymptotically good attaining a positive lower bound. Bassa used this tower and constructed quasi transitive codes which are a generalization of transitive codes and proved that they are also asymptotically good and attain the same positive lower bound. Later Bassa, Garcia and Stichtenoth constructed a new tower of function fields over cubic finite fields whose structure is less complicated compared to that of Bezerra, Garcia and Stichtenoths' and proved that codes constructed over it also attain the same positive lower bound. In this work along the lines of Bassa and Stichtenoth we construct quasi transitive codes over the tower given by Bassa, Garcia and Stichtenoth and prove that these quasi transitive codes are also asymptotically good and also attain the same lower bound.