Let G be a Polish group. We say that G is an algebraically determined Polish group if given any Polish group L and any algebraic isomorphism from L to G, then the algebraic isomorphism is a topological isomorphism. We will prove a general theorem that gives useful sufficient conditions for a semidirect product of two Polish groups to be algebraically determined. This will smooth the way for the proofs for some special groups. For example, let H be a separable Hilbert space and let G be a subset of the unitary group U(H) acting transitively on the unit sphere. Assume that -I in G and G is a Polish topological group in some topology such that H x G to H, (x,U) to U(x) is continuous, then H x G is a Polish topological group. Hence H x G is an algebraically determined Polish group. In addition, we apply the above the above result on the unitary group U(A) of a separable irreducible C*-algebra A with identity acting transitively on the unit sphere in a separable Hilbert space H and proved that the natural semidirect product H x U(A) is an algebraically determined Polish group. A similar theorem is true for the natural semidirect product R^{n} x G(n), where G(n) = GL(n,R), or GL^{+}(n,R), or SL(n,R), or |SL(n,R)|={A in GL(n,R) : |det(A)|=1}. On the other hand, it is known that the Heisenberg group H_{3}(R) , (R, +), (R{0}, x), and GL^{+}(n,R) are not algebraically determined Polish groups.

Introduction/Background Unplanned pregnancies among students at higher educational institutions are a major concern worldwide, including South Africa. Apart from various social and psychological problems, unplanned pregnancies affect students’ objectives of achieving academic success. Research indicated that around 80 per cent of female students are sexually active. Higher educational students between the ages of 18 and 24 have one of the highest rates of unplanned pregnancies due to the lack of contraceptive use, knowledge and awareness regarding the use of contraceptives. Purpose of the study The purpose of the study was to assess the use of contraceptives by female undergraduate students in a higher educational institution. Methodology In terms of methodology, a cross-sectional, descriptive quantitative survey was used.The survey included 400 female undergraduate students at a higher educational institution who were required to respond to a self-administrative questionnaire. Categorical data, such as race, religion, ethnic group, place of residence and marital status were compared to each group using Chi square. Multiple logic regression analysis was applied to test the models. In addition, frequency tables, bar charts and pie charts were generated for all variables, which served as an input for descriptive statistics, based on frequencies and percentages. Research findings Of the 74 per cent sexually active females, 79 per cent reported using contraceptives. The most common used methods were the oral contraceptives, 38 per cent, and male condoms, 25 per cent. The most commonly known methods were condoms, 84 per cent, and the oral contraceptive, 68 per cent. The level of knowledge of the condom use to prevent sexually transmitted diseases was very high, 91 per cent. The knowledge of the benefits of contraceptives was also high, 97 per cent. There were some misconceptions, like contraceptives cause cancer and 75 per cent indicated weight gain as a side-effect of contraceptives. The level of knowledge of the emergency contraceptive was high, 90 per cent, but the awareness that it is free of charge at the campus clinic was low, 30 per cent. The level of awareness of the services was good, 72 per cent, and the most common first source of information was the school, 65 per cent. Sixteen per cent of participants indicated that religion was a factor for non-utilisation of contraceptives. Conclusion A lack of knowledge and awareness on some contraceptives methods was found. Thus educational programmes to increase student’s knowledge on all contraceptive methods, including addressing possible side-effects, and its use, are urgently needed to increase the use of contraceptives and assisting in reducing the rate of unplanned pregnancies. / Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2017. / Nursing Science / MSc / Unrestricted

There has been much concern about how teachers teach math in the elementary classroom. With increasing accountability standards from the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB; United States Department of Education 2002), students in the elementary grades are tested for mathematical ability. Elementary teachers have felt pressured to teach certain subjects in the classroom as a result of statewide and nationally mandated student testing. This research should add to the data available to those higher institutions that are seeking ways to design programs to help improve the teaching of mathematics and the understanding mathematics students possess. Faculty members in the elementary education program at Mississippi State University were interested in determining ways to assist students in becoming better teachers. The Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences (2001) has made many statements about the need for teachers to have deep understanding of school mathematics concepts and procedures. This study was designed as a first step in determining if the mathematics courses and materials are helping pre-service teachers comply with NCTM, Principles and Standards for Schools Mathematics (2000), and the No Child Left Behind Act (2001). Also it was designed to determine the needs of students and to help university faculty find ways to help math educators make sense of mathematics. The overall goal of the study was to assist elementary education faculty in establishing a descriptive profile in mathematics for pre-service elementary education teacher majors. Descriptive statistics were generated for the variables in this study. Data analysis of the descriptive profile revealed that most teacher made tests such as grades in university required mathematics courses; scores on grades in Structure of the Real Number System, Problem Solving, and Informal Geometry and Measurement, 45 GPA core courses; Student Teaching; and Overall GPA categories were consistent across cohorts of students. A recommendation was made to survey the original sample two to three years later with survey questions and open-ended questions to see if what they learn as preservice elementary majors helped them to teach mathematics as novice teachers.

The purpose of this study was to determine the post secondary plans of Belizean high school students. A study of this nature had never been conducted in Belize. This study was conducted to help the Belizean Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports; The University of Belize, and secondary schools understand what Belizean high school students most want to do after graduation, what preferences they have for post secondary education, and for their careers. The sample for the study was selected through a modified two-stage cluster sampling process, with purposeful sampling of schools so that the final sample would be as nearly as possible representative of the nation. A locally developed instrument called the Belizean Post Graduation Planning Instrument was administered in 3rd - and 4th - Form classes. Of the 1,000 instruments mailed to Belize for this study, I received 978 completed instruments in return (98% response rate), and 900 of these were usable. I analyzed the data using frequency distributions and chi-square analysis. The results of the study indicated that the most common preferred destination for these students immediately after high school was 6th Form. Almost half (46.3%) of students indicated they wanted to go into the 6th Form and then attend a university. Many students' beliefs about what they will probably do after high school differed from what they want most to do. The students were more likely to say that they will probably go to work (either immediately after high school or after 6th Form) and less likely to go to university (either immediately after high school or after 6th Form, as compared to their preferred plans). About half of students whose preferred plans differed from their probable plans indicated that financial factors were responsible for the difference. Belizean high school students most frequently requested training or additional educational options in subjects related to business, such as accounting, economics, finance, and banking, and they want to pursue careers in business and tourism. Students reporting an intention to attend a university chose the University of Belize 66% of the time. The findings of this study have important implications for policy and practice. These implications extend to the personnel involved in secondary school administration, 6th Form administrators, administrators at the University of Belize, and officials in the Ministry of Education. The results of this study can be used to shape secondary and tertiary curriculum and to guide national resource allocations so that the nation's scarce dollars are used where national interest and student needs meet. / Master of Arts

The study of Borel equivalence relations on Polish spaces has become a major area of focus within descriptive set theory. Primarily, work in this area has been carried out using the standard methods of descriptive set theory. In this work, however, we develop a model-theoretic framework suitable for the study of Borel equivalence relations, introducing a class of objects we call Borel structurings. We then use these structurings to examine conditions under which marker sets for Borel equivalence relations can be concluded to exist or not exist, as well as investigating to what extent the Compactness Theorem from first-order logic continues to hold for Borel structurings.

Borel determinacy states that if G(T;X) is a game and X is Borel, then G(T;X) is determined. Proved by Martin in 1975, Borel determinacy is a theorem of ZFC set theory, and is, in fact, the best determinacy result in ZFC. However, the proof uses sets of high set theoretic type (N1 many power sets of ω). Friedman proved in 1971 that these sets are necessary by showing that the Axiom of Replacement is necessary for any proof of Borel Determinacy. To prove this, Friedman produces a model of ZC and a Borel set of Turing degrees that neither contains nor omits a cone; so by another theorem of Martin, Borel Determinacy is not a theorem of ZC. This paper contains three main sections: Martin's proof of Borel Determinacy; a simpler example of Friedman's result, namely, (in ZFC) a coanalytic set of Turing degrees that neither contains nor omits a cone; and finally, the Friedman result.

Student Number : 9613926H - MA research report - School of Translators and Interpreters - Faculty of Humanities / This dissertation attempts to offer a contribution to the field of translation by applying the practices of descriptive translation studies to a corpus of Chemistry terms in English and translated into Sepedi in order to establish whether the translation strategies opted for prove successful in promoting Sepedi to be a language for special purposes (LSP). The theoretical framework which is used in this project is the model of Baker (1992) of translation strategies of Descriptive Translation Studies (DTS). DTS is one of the three main branches of Translation Theory (Holmes, 1972). It differs from the other approaches in that it does not offer a set of guidelines which dictate how a translation should be done. Attention was also paid to theories of translation, such as those of Lawrence Venuti (2000) and his concepts of domesticating and foreignising translation in order to establish whether the translators have domesticated or foreignised the text and to what extent? Both strategies are evident in the corpus. This project also focused on the issue of the mother tongue education in the South African context with the emphasis on the perceptions and attitudes of learners and educators towards translated materials. Learners and their educators show some resistance to the use of local African languages, specifically Sepedi as medium of instruction in high schools. Reasons for their resistance against mother tongue education are economic and political. African languages are regarded as “low languages”, languages of inferior status as compared to English and Afrikaans.

L’Ingénierie Dirigée par les Modèles (IDM) a suscité un grand intérêt grâce aux avantages qu’elle offre. Enparticulier, l’IDM vise à accélérer le processus de développement et à faciliter la maintenance des logiciels. Mais avecl'augmentation permanente de la taille des modèles et de leurs instances, l’exploitation des modèles et de leurs instances,en utilisant des outils classiques présente des insuffisances liées au passage à l’échelle. L’utilisation des bases de donnéesest une des solutions proposées pour répondre à ce problème. Dans ce contexte, deux approches ont été proposées. Lapremière consiste à équiper les outils de modélisation avec des bases de données dédiées au stockage de modèles,appelées model repositories (p. ex. EMFStore). Ces bases de données sont équipées de langages d’exploitation limitésseulement à l’interrogation des modèles et des instances. Par conséquent, ces langages n’offrent aucune capacité poureffectuer des opérations avancées sur les modèles telles que la transformation de modèles ou la génération de code. Ladeuxième approche, que nous suivons dans notre travail, consiste à définir des environnements persistants en base dedonnées dédiés à la méta-modélisation. Ces environnements sont appelés systèmes de méta-modélisation persistants(PMMS). Un PMMS consiste en (i) une base de données dédiée au stockage des méta-modèles, des modèles et de leursinstances, et (ii) un langage d'exploitation associé possédant des capacités de méta-modélisation et d’exploitation desmodèles. Plusieurs PMMS ont été proposés tels que ConceptBase ou OntoDB/OntoQL. Ces PMMS supportentprincipalement la définition de la sémantique structurelle et descriptive des méta-modèles et des modèles en terme de(méta-)classes, (méta-)attributs, etc. Par contre, ces PMMS fournissent des mécanismes limités pour définir la sémantiquecomportementale nécessaire à l’exploitation des modèles et des instances. En effet, la sémantique comportementalepourrait être utile pour calculer des concepts dérivés, effectuer des transformations de modèles, générer du code source,etc. Ainsi, nous proposons dans notre travail d'étendre les PMMS avec la possibilité d'introduire dynamiquement desopérations qui peuvent être implémentées en utilisant des mécanismes hétérogènes. Ces opérations peuvent ainsi utiliserdes mécanismes internes au système de gestion de base de données (p. ex. les procédures stockées) tout comme desmécanismes externes tels que les services web ou les programmes externes (p. ex. Java, C++). Cette extension permetd’améliorer les PMMS en leur donnant une plus large couverture de fonctionnalités et une plus grande flexibilité. Pourvalider notre proposition, elle a été implémentée sur le prototype OntoDB/OntoQ et a été mise en oeuvre dans troiscontextes différents : (1) pour calculer les concepts dérivés dans les bases de données à base ontologique, (2) pouraméliorer une méthodologie de conception de base de données à base ontologique et finalement (3) pour faire de latransformation et de l’analyse des modèles des systèmes embarqués temps réel. / Modeling and model management have taken a great interest in software development since they accelerate thesoftware development process and facilitate their maintenance. But, with the increasing size of models and their instances,the management of models and their instances with tools evolving in main memory presents some insufficiencies relatedto scalability. Indeed, classical tools using the central memory have shown their limits when they face large scale modelsand instances. Thus, to overcome the problem of scalability, the management of models in databases becomes a necessity.Indeed, two solutions were proposed. The first one consists in equipping modeling and model management tools withspecific databases, called model repositories, (e.g., EMFStore) dedicated to store metamodels, models and instances.These model repositories are equipped with exploitation languages restricted only to querying capabilities such that modelrepositories serve only as model warehouses as processing model management tasks require loading the whole model tothe central memory. The second solution, on which we focus our approach, consists in defining database environments formetamodeling and model management. These systems, called Persistent MetaModeling Systems (PMMSs), aim atproviding a database environment for metamodeling and model management. Indeed, a PMMS consists in (i) a databasethat stores metamodels, models their instances, and (ii) an associated exploitation language possessing metamodeling andmodel management capabilities. Several PMMSs have been proposed (e.g., ConceptBase, OntoDB/OntoQL) and focusmainly on the structural definition of metamodels and models in terms of (meta-)classes, (meta-)attributes, etc. Yet,existing PMMSs provide limited capabilities to define behavioral semantics for model and data management. Indeed,behavioral semantics could be useful to compute derivations, perform model transformations, generate source code, etc.In our work, we propose to extend PMMSs with the capability to introduce dynamically user-defined model and datamanagement operations. These operations can be implemented using flexible and heterogeneous mechanisms. Indeed,they can use internal database mechanisms (e.g., stored procedures) as well as external mechanisms such as web servicesor external programs (e.g., Java, C++). As a consequence, this extension enhances PMMSs giving them more coverageand further flexibility. This extension has been implemented on the OntoDB/OntoQL prototype, and experimented tocheck the scaling of our approach. Moreover, our proposition has been used in three different contexts. In particular, (1)to compute derived concepts of ontologies, (2) to enhance an ontology-based database design methodology and (3) totransform and analyze models of real-time and embedded systems.

L’estimation de fréquence des maladies est nécessaire pour générer des hypothèses étiologiques et évaluer leur l’impact médico-économique. Cependant, il est possible que ces estimations ne reflètent pas uniquement les caractéristiques de fréquence intrinsèque d’une maladie mais aussi de variations dues à des choix méthodologiques qui diffèrent entre études. Cette hypothèse d’une variabilité des fréquences liée à des facteurs méthodologiques a été initialement soulevée par notre premier travail qui visait à estimer la prévalence du syndrome de Gougerot-Sjögren (SGS) primitif au sein de la population française de la Seine-Saint-Denis pendant la période 2007. Malgré une bonne exhaustivité d’identification des cas de 90 % calculée par la méthode de capture-recapture, notre estimation de prévalence de 1,02 cas pour 10 000 habitants est la plus faible estimation de fréquence du SGS primitif publiée dans la littérature à ce jour. En particulier, ce travail a souligné le possible impact des méthodologies de type « recensement » ou « échantillonnage » sur les estimations établies par des études de fréquence. Cette étude a montré aussi pour la première fois une prévalence 2 fois supérieure chez les patients non-européens par rapport aux européens avec des possibles phénotypes distincts. Pour explorer plus en détail l’hypothèse d’une variabilité entre les estimations générées par les approches de « recensement » ou de « échantillon », nous avons réalisé un deuxième travail qui consistait en une méta-analyse de la prévalence de la maladie de Behçet (MB) rapportée par 45 études internationales publiées dans la littérature. Des analyses en sous-groupes et par méta-régression ont montré des variations notables de la prévalence de MB entre zones géographiques mais aussi selon le type d’étude (recensement vs échantillonnage) utilisé. En analyse par méta-régression multivariée, seule la variable « type d’étude » était significativement associée aux valeurs de prévalence de la MB. En conclusion, ces travaux soulignent l’impact de la méthodologie utilisée pour conduire les études de fréquence des maladies. Les différences conceptuelles entre les études de recensement et les études échantillonnage soulevant la question sur la comparabilité des estimations obtenues par ces deux approches. / Estimating the frequency of diseases is of major importance for generating etiologic hypotheses and for assessing their global burden. Although such estimates may reflect the intrinsic frequency characteristics of a disease, they may also reflect variations due to methodological differences between studies. In our first study, we raised this assumption that the variability of disease frequency estimates is linked to methodological factors. This population-based survey aimed at estimating the prevalence of primary Sjögren's syndrome (pSS) in Seine-Saint-Denis, France, during 2007. Despite a high completeness of case-finding, 90%, assessed by capture-recapture analysis, the estimated prevalence of pSS of 1.02 cases per 10,000 adults was the lowest prevalence estimate published in the literature. Also, this study was the first to show a two-fold higher prevalence of pSS in people of non-European than European background and possible ethnicity-related differences in disease phenotypes. In addition, this study highlighted the possible effect of "census" or "sampling" designs on frequency estimates reported from population-based surveys. To explore in more detail the assumption that "census" or "sampling" approaches generate variability in frequency estimates of diseases, we performed a second study, involving a meta-analysis of the prevalence of Behçet's disease (BD) in published reports of 45 international studies. Subgroup and meta-regression analyses showed notable variations in BD prevalence estimates geographically but also by study design (census vs sampling). On multivariate meta-regression analysis, only study design significantly predicted BD prevalence estimates. In conclusion, this thesis highlights the importance of study design in population-based estimates of disease frequency. Conceptual differences between census and sample studies raise questions about the extent to which estimates obtained by either of these two approaches are comparable.

In this dissertation we study closure properties of pointclasses, scales on sets of reals and the models L[T2n], which are very natural canonical inner models of ZFC. We first characterize projective-like hierarchies by their associated ordinals. This solves a conjecture of Steel and a conjecture of Kechris, Solovay, and Steel. The solution to the first conjecture allows us in particular to reprove a strong partition property result on the ordinal of a Steel pointclass and derive a new boundedness principle which could be useful in the study of the cardinal structure of L(R). We then develop new methods which produce lightface scales on certain sets of reals. The methods are inspired by Jackson’s proof of the Kechris-Martin theorem. We then generalize the Kechris-Martin Theorem to all the Π12n+1 pointclasses using Jackson’s theory of descriptions. This in turns allows us to characterize the sets of reals of a certain initial segment of the models L[T2n]. We then use this characterization and the generalization of Kechris-Martin theorem to show that the L[T2n] are unique. This generalizes previous work of Hjorth. We then characterize the L[T2n] in term of inner models theory, showing that they actually are constructible models over direct limit of mice with Woodin cardinals, a counterpart to Steel’s result that the L[T2n+1] are extender models, and finally show that the generalized contiuum hypothesis holds in these models, solving a conjecture of Woodin.