The core of my dissertation is devoted to a re-interpretation of the history of the liberation movement in South Africa in two critical periods of its development. The first I call in short 'the 1940s' but shall be referring more specifically to the years between 1939 and the rise of apartheid in 1948; the second I call 'the 1950s' but shall refer to the years between the emergence of apartheid and the defeat of the liberation movement in 1964. Both the 1940s and the 1950s were marked by fierce class struggles which brought with them hopes of a new democratic order in South Africa; both closed on the sombre note of defeat for democracy and triumph for the forces of reaction and racism. Motivated by a dissatisfaction with prevailing interpretations, I shall explore what went wrong in these years in order to deepen our understanding of the political culture and social base of the liberation movement. I have focussed on these two historical periods because I see the basic parameters of the contemporary liberation movement as set by the class struggles which occurred within them. My central hypothesis is that, although class relations do not on the whole manifest themselves directly on the surface of the liberation movement, they have nonetheless been the crucial determinants of its pattern of evolution. My introductory chapter will be devoted to a theoretical discussion of the relation between nationalism and socialism in the South Africa liberation movement. It was written after the historical research and its ideas reflect a considerable change of mind which resulted from the research; the ideas expressed within it provide a necessary foundation for understanding what I wish to say through the substantive history. My final section will be an attempt to outline the major lessons which I draw from the history of these class struggles; it focusses on what I see as the unresolved conflict between the two traditions of 'radical liberalism' and 'insurrectionism' which run through the history of the liberation struggle and on defining what I see as the 'absent centre' of this history: social democracy or more accurately the social democratic movement of the working class.

In this thesis, I present a theoretical framework in which children's voluntary participation in armed conflict becomes a reasonable act within their social environment. I argue that in order to gain a more analytical understanding of why children volunteer, social scientists require an in-depth knowledge of the political, social and economic conditions in which they join up And of the meanings that children attach to those situations and their reactions. Prior quantitative data on the social distribution of child volunteering have often been used to proclaim that `the most vulnerable of the vulnerable' are recruited. On the basis of a discourse analysis of UNHCR's policies and activities in relation to under-age recruitment, I illustrate my claim that dominant Euro-American conceptualisations of childhood have primarily shaped research and humanitarian aid regarding child soldiering and resulted in the portrayal of child soldiers as innocent victims who are corrupted by adult wars. I subsequently go on to show how a new paradigm for the study of childhood can enhance contemporary knowledge on the social processes and factors that lead children to consider and eventually join a military group or opt for an alternative mode of action to cope with their dire situation. In my qualitative case-study of child soldiering in the anti-apartheid struggle, I found that in joining a political organisation and subsequently its military wing, young South Africans sought to assert their (political) agency within the structural and cultural features that shaped their social environment. Within the context of changing peer and intergenerational relationships, these children carved out more powerful identities for them to address the social injustices that had affected their personal and collective lives.

The thesis, supervised by Jean Lafontaine, focussed on migration from the Comoro Islands near Madagascar, to Zanzibar and the East African Swahili coast, between the 1830s and the 1970s. Comorians had shared a common history and culture with the Swahili for many centuries; in colonial East Africa, chance offered them a unique ‘racial’ and employment niche which evaporated abruptly after 1964 and East African independence. They had suddenly to reassess marriage, residence and self-definition strategies, and their implications for the future. The thesis addressed ethnic identity (which had focussed excessively on its immutability) and demonstrated its adaptability to changing political and economic context. The study also attempted to escape from timeless, fixed-location ethnography, and followed links which led to data-collection in several East African and Comorian locations. Finally, by following Comorian choices over 150 years, the thesis made a contribution to an understanding of broader Swahili history which demands similar light-footed mobility through time and space for the processes of change to be understood. Gill Shepherd completed her PhD at a time when university recruitment was a standstill. Instead she built a career in tropical forest policy at London’s Overseas Development Institute, and focussed on rights for forest peoples.

This thesis addresses the question of why, when almost everyone says they wish it would end, suffering such as that in northern Uganda continues. I argue that, contrary to popular presentations, the situation is not primarily one of war between the Lord’s Resistance Army and the Government of Uganda, but instead a form of mass torture, which I call Social Torture. The principal victims are the population within the ‘war zone’, particularly in ‘protected villages’ for the internally displaced, where tactics and symptoms typical of torture, including violation, dread, disorientation, dependency, debilitation and humiliation, are widespread. The most visible perpetrators are the Government and LRA, but a range of less visible actors are also involved, not least donor governments, multi-lateral organisations, academics, churches and NGOs. In many instances these can be regarded as complicit bystanders; like doctors in a torture situation, they appear to be there to ease the suffering of victims, but in reality they enable the process to be prolonged by keeping the victim alive for further abuse. This serves a number of interlinked economic, political and psychological functions for perpetrators and bystanders alike, and is underpinned by psychological and discursive processes of justification, most importantly the idea that this situation is first and foremost a ‘war’ between the LRA and the Government. In short, in a situation such as northern Uganda, means and ends are inverted: rather than torture being a tactic with which to prosecute war, here war is the guise under which Social Torture is perpetrated. War continues because Social Torture is not addressed. Given that those who in principle have the most power to do so are implicated in Social Torture themselves, the focus has to shift from the intentions of visible perpetrators to the responsibilities of a far wider range of actors.

This research is concerned with understanding a quality management system and its interaction with maintenance management activities within the organisation. The interaction between maintenance and quality, can lead to their integration with production. The second output of production is maintenance, whose output is increased production capacity. Both the production process and the quality of the maintenance work, which, in turn, affects equipment condition, affect the quality of final product. The thesis aims to identify the barriers and difficulties affecting quality in maintenance, within Libyan (public sector) manufacturing organisations. The specific objectives are derived to provide focus for the research activities, in order to fulfil the specific aim of the research in a structured and scientific manner. In order to achieve the thesis objectives, an empirically-based systems analysis of two case study organisations in the Libyan public manufacturing sector was carried out. Substantial field work was carried out using predominantly a qualitative approach. Qualitative data was collected by semi structured interview (from different levels of management and supervisors) to explore the quality management phenomena, and to provide a more holistic understanding through triangulation techniques of required and suitable data. This study has contributed to existing knowledge through getting an in-depth understanding of quality and maintenance issues. A specific definition of "quality in maintenance" was developed, common barriers of quality systems and the key factors of improving maintenance were summarised. Furthermore, by using the framework in figure 2.8 the enablers and inhibitors of quality in maintenance were demonstrated. This study is the first one that identified the unique barriers affecting quality in maintenance within the Libyan manufacturing organisations. These barriers are divided into three main kinds: the technical, economic barriers, managerial, organisational barriers, and cultural environmental barriers. The key findings of the research indicate that the case study organisations do not actively promote quality in the maintenance area that takes into consideration the influence of organisational, social, economic and political factors (change culture) on the quality of operations and performance inside the organisations.

L'internet des Objets (IoT) est habituellement présenté comme l'ensemble d'objets interconnectés à travers un réseau qui est, en pratique, Internet. Or, il existe beaucoup de cas où la connectivité est intermittente à cause des interfaces radio courte-portées et des contraintes d'économie d'énergie. L'architecture de réseautage tolérant les délais (DTN) ainsi que le Bundle Protocole (BP) sont considérés comme des solutions viables pour résoudre ce genre de challenges grâce au mécanisme store-carry-and-forward. Cette thèse vise à fournir des supports de programmation adaptés autant à l'IoT qu'au contexte DTN. Dans ce but, les challenges relevant du DTN et de l'IoT (DT-IoT) sont étudiés et quelques principes de design logiciels sont proposés. Ces principes ont pour but d'optimiser la réactivité et l'efficacité des applications ayant pour cible un contexte DT- IoT. La première contribution est la définition d'un support de programmation orienté ressources, nommé BoaP. Ce support fournit un protocole de requête/réponse grâce à une transposition de CoAP (Contrained Application Protocol). Cette transposition est composée d'ajustements fondamentaux et d'améliorations pour utiliser BP en tant que couche de transport. BoaP a été implémenté et testée dans un petit réseau physique. Une méthode pour évaluer des intergiciels dans des réseaux DTNs est présentée. Un outil implémentant cette méthode a été développé. Il repose sur une plateforme de virtualisation qui simule les contacts réseaux tout en émulant les nœuds du réseau. Cet outil a été utilisé pour exécuter des expériences pour évaluer la validité de BoaP. Enfin, un autre support de programmation est examiné. Celui-ci adopte une approche orientée service et respecte les contraintes REST (Representational State Transfer). Il se repose sur BoaP a été créé avec l'IoT en tête et est adapté à l’environnement DTN. La découverte exploite une interface de publications/souscriptions. Les descripteurs de services contiennent des champs spécifiques pour informer de la disponibilité de leur fournisseurs. / The Internet of Things (IoT) is usually presented as a set of THINGS interconnected through a network that is, in practice, Internet. However, there exist many contexts in which the connectivity is intermittent due to short-range wireless communication means or energy constraints. The Delay Tolerant Networking (DTN) architecture and the Bundle Protocol (BP) are known to overcome this communication challenge as they provide communication means by relying on a store-carry-and- forward mechanism. This thesis aims to provide programming supports adapted to both IoT and DTN contexts. For this, both DTN and IoT (DT-IoT) challenges are studied and several design principles are proposed. These principles aim to optimize reactivity and efficiency of applications targeting the DT-IoT context. The first contribution is the definition of a resource-oriented programming support, named BoaP, to enable a DT-IoT. It provides a protocol based on request/response thanks to a transposition of CoAP (Contrained Application Protocol). This transposition consists of fundamental adjustments and enhancements to use BP as the underlying transport protocol. BoaP has been implemented and tested in a small physical network. A method to evaluate middleware systems in DTNs is presented. A tool implementing this method has been developed. It relies on a virtualization platform that simulates network contacts and emulates network devices. This tool was used to run experimentations that assessed the validity of BoaP. Finally, another programming support is investigated. It follows a service-oriented approach and respects REST (Representational State Transfer) constraints. It is built on top of BoaP with IoT in mind and is adapted to DTN environments. Its discovery/advertisement exploits a publish/subscribe interface. Service descriptors contain specific fields to inform on the availability of the service providers. %Finally, requests are extended with some options to enforce conditions on geographic or time context.

Inledning: Övervikt och fetma ökar runt om i världen och detta bidrar till att sjukvården blir successivt mer belastade med denna patientkategori, även på röntgen. Datortomografi är en snabb undersökning som ger mycket information om patientens patologiska tillstånd. Dock kan övervikt vara ett hinder för att få rätt bildgivande parametrar samt att röntgensjuksköterskan ska arbeta med att hålla nere stråldosen. Syfte: Studiens syfte var att belysa hur röntgensjuksköterskan kan arbeta med att bibehålla diagnostisk bildkvalité och optimerad stråldos på patienter med högt BMI vid DT undersökningar. Metod: Studien utfördes som en allmän litteraturöversikt med ett analysarbete av tio utvalda artiklar skrivna med kvantitativ ansats som alla har blivit kvalitetsgranskade. Resultat: I resultatet framkom det att låga stråldosprotokoll med korrekt programvara kan bidra till att strålningen till överviktiga patienter kan minska jämfört med ett standardprotokoll på datortomografin. Det är viktigt med rätt placering av patienten i ISO-center inför undersökningen för att uppnå en bra diagnostisk bildkvalité. Slutsats: Det behövs mer forskning för optimering av stråldoser till patientgrupper med ett högt BMI vid DT-undersökningar. Det krävs en vidareutveckling av datortomografen vad gäller maxvikt för undersökningsbordet samt att gantryts storlek behöver öka i sin diameter, vilket är nödvändigt för att kunna genomföra undersökningar på patienter med högt BMI. De två viktigaste momenten som röntgensjuksköterskan utför i sitt arbete vad gäller optimering är att noggrant placera patienten i ISO-center samt att placera innanför scan FoV. Därefter kan röntgensjuksköterskan med sina kunskaper arbeta tillsammans med radiologen för att bibehålla stråldoser och bildkvalitet. / Introduction: Obesity are increasing around the world and this contributes to healthcare gradually becoming more burdened with this patient category, even on X-rays. Computed tomography is a rapid examination that provides a lot of information about the patient's pathological condition. However, being overweight can be an obstacle to getting the right imaging parameters and for the X-ray nurse to work on keeping the radiation dose down. Aim: The aim of the study was to shed light on how the X-ray nurse can work to maintain diagnostic image quality and optimized radiation dose in patients with high BMI in CT examinations. Method: The study was done as a general literature review with an analytical work of ten selected articles written with a quantitative approach. Results: The results showed that low radiation dose protocols with the correct software can contribute to the radiation to obese patients can be reduced compared with a standard protocol on computed tomography. It is important to place the patient in the ISO center prior to the examination in order to achieve a good diagnostic image quality. Conclusion: More research is needed to optimize radiation doses to patient groups with a high BMI in DT- examinations. A further development of the computed tomography is required in terms of maximum weight for the examination table and that the size of the gantry needs to increase in its diameter, which is necessary to be able to perform examinations on patients with a high BMI. The two most important steps that the X-ray nurse performs in her work in terms of optimization is to carefully place the patient in the ISO center and inside the scan FoV. After that, the X-ray nurse with her knowledge can work together with the radiologist to maintain radiation doses and image quality.

The purpose of this research is to explore preservice teachers’ attitudes and beliefs towards mathematics, mental and written computations, and mental computation anxiety, to investigate their use of different mental computation strategies using different approaches (i.e., Direct Teaching (DT) and Open-Approach (OA)) among the three different groups, and to identify how the use of preservice teachers’ mental computation strategies affects their flexibility regarding mental computation. The participants were preservice teachers (PTS). Three classes were used for this study: two classes in a mathematics class (Course A) for experimental groups and one class for the control group. One class from professional education courses was selected. A mixed methods design was used, more specifically, the Mathematics Attitude Survey (MAS) was administrated before and after intervention to examine PTS’ attitudes towards mathematics, mental and written computation, and mental computation anxiety. In addition, to determine whether there is any statistically significant difference among the three groups, the one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used. Then, the MAS was analyzed descriptively. Next, a pre-and post-Mental Computation Test (MCT) was given to investigate PTS’ mental computation knowledge in relation to whole numbers, integers, and rational numbers (i.e., fractions, decimals, and percentages). A one-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was conducted to determine if there were significant differences in mental computation performance among the three groups (i.e., DT, OA, and Control) with different instructions. Further, before and after intervention, face-to-face interviews were given to both the experimental and control groups to identify how they arrived at their answers. During interviews, 38 interviewees in the pre-interviews and 36 in the post-interviews for all groups participated. The interview items were selected from the pre-and post-MCT problems. Three levels of problems (i.e., high, medium, and low difficulty) for each operation were selected. The results of the MAS showed that with respect to the attitudes towards mathematics, PTS were generally shown positive attitudes towards learning mathematics and were aware of the importance of learning mathematics; however, in reality, about half of them did not want to spend time on learning or studying mathematics. In terms of PTS’ attitudes towards mental and written computation, PTS were aware that learning mental computation is more useful in real life situations and provides benefits in their mathematics learning. However, they do not feel comfortable and safe when using mental computation because of their lack of confidence and teaching abilities. For the mental computation, PTS showed slightly higher anxiety levels from pre-to post-tests. The findings of Mental Computation Test (MCT) revealed that there was a statistically significant difference in post-MCT scores between the different instructional groups when adjusted for pre-MCT scores. In particular, PTS using Open-Approach (OA) performed better than the PTS in the group using Direct Teaching (DT). The PTS in the control group performed worst. Significant differences between pre-and post-MCT performance were found among the three groups in solving multiplication, fraction, and decimal operations. The results of interviews suggest that there was an association between each interviewee’s quintile level and their flexibility in the use of the mental computation strategies. Regarding the whole number operation strategies, the results revealed that the interviewees in the middle and upper quintiles in both DT and OA used more than two different strategies with higher accuracy and were more likely to use the strategies. Interviewees in the middle and upper quintiles for the DT and OA groups were more likely to use the strategies that reflect efficient number facts or number-sense (e.g., Adding by place, Decomposing, & Compensation). The mental image of the Traditional method was frequently observed in the OA group. In contrast, for the lower quintiles, alternative strategies were not provided for both groups. The interviewees in the control group offered the smallest range of strategies. For the integer and rational operations, the interviewees in the DT group showed strategies that focused more on conceptual understanding. Surprisingly, the interviewees in the OA group were more likely to apply teacher-taught methods, including the Traditional method. The control group was not able to provide any alternative strategies. Plans for future research are set forth to add to the body of knowledge that exists regarding mental computation.

Myocardial infarction (MI) is the leading cause of death among men and women in the United States. Once a person suffers from a MI, the heart wall will undergo a dynamic and time dependent change, as it goes through the inflammatory phase, proliferative phase, and healing phase. During these phases, the necrotic tissue is removed, and the extracellular matrix (ECM) that holds the cardiomyocytes is altered by an increase in type I collagen, which leads to a scar formation in the infarcted area. The goal of this dissertation is to better understand the role of the cardiac ECM biomechanics in heart physiology, pathophysiology (MI), and regeneration. Three Aims were hence pursued. In Aim 1, we investigated cardiac ECM architecture in intact acellular hearts using diffusion tensor-magnetic resonance imaging (DT-MRI); additionally, we characterized the biomechanical and structural properties of cardiac ECM at different anatomical locations of the left ventricle wall. In Aim 2, we characterized the biomechanical and structural properties of scar ECM during the acute to chronic stages of MI using a rat heart model, in order to better understanding the time course changes in scar ECM biomechanics/microenvironment. In Aim 3, we determined if large mammals (pig heart model) have the capability to fully regenerate a resected piece of the heart apex during the neonatal stage, in which cardiac ECM is still in a developmental phase. The hope is to apply the obtained knowledge in cardiac ECM biomechanics to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of treatments, such as stem cell injection, scar tissue repairing, and regenerative intervention.

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