The concept of game development has traditionally not implemented the skills of professional writers to develop the scripts for a computer game. However, due to the growth in complexity and size of the computer game development process, as well as the growing teams of people involved in the development of computer games, the need to employ skilled writers has emerged in modern computer game development. It has, however, become clear that the role of the writer within the collaborative game development process is still ill-defined. And therefore, the writer who wishes to start writing for the games industry, is faced with a great deal of obstacles. It was therefore deemed necessary to develop a script development model for the creation of computer games that can assist the writer of a computer game by means of thorough guidance. The aim of this research project is therefore to develop such a model. The first step towards the establishment of a script development model, would be to determine the position of the writer in the collaborative game production communication process. In order to establish this, a communication model was developed for the communication process of the computer game development process, based on Roman Jakobson's communication model. After the position of the writer in the communication process was established, a game development model was developed to determine the position of the writer within the entire game development process. This was done so that the functions and responsibilities of the writer - within a greater collaborative development process - could be determined. This model was developed based on existing software development models, as well as two different models from the games industry that focus on different aspects within the game development process. With the position, functions and responsibilities of the writer determined, it was possible to postulate a script development model for the creation of computer games. This model was developed with an emphasis on the game context, creative strategies and analytical frameworks available to the writer. Furthermore guidelines were provided on the actual scripting of the computer game script, based on elements from drama theory. To test the script development model, a non-functional prototype (thin-slice) computer game script was developed based on the Fritz Deelman-series (Leon Rousseau). The script development model was used as guideline to establish whether the script development model could in future be used to develop a full-scale, implementable computer game script. / Thesis (M.A. (Afrikaans and Dutch))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

The concept of game development has traditionally not implemented the skills of professional writers to develop the scripts for a computer game. However, due to the growth in complexity and size of the computer game development process, as well as the growing teams of people involved in the development of computer games, the need to employ skilled writers has emerged in modern computer game development. It has, however, become clear that the role of the writer within the collaborative game development process is still ill-defined. And therefore, the writer who wishes to start writing for the games industry, is faced with a great deal of obstacles. It was therefore deemed necessary to develop a script development model for the creation of computer games that can assist the writer of a computer game by means of thorough guidance. The aim of this research project is therefore to develop such a model. The first step towards the establishment of a script development model, would be to determine the position of the writer in the collaborative game production communication process. In order to establish this, a communication model was developed for the communication process of the computer game development process, based on Roman Jakobson's communication model. After the position of the writer in the communication process was established, a game development model was developed to determine the position of the writer within the entire game development process. This was done so that the functions and responsibilities of the writer - within a greater collaborative development process - could be determined. This model was developed based on existing software development models, as well as two different models from the games industry that focus on different aspects within the game development process. With the position, functions and responsibilities of the writer determined, it was possible to postulate a script development model for the creation of computer games. This model was developed with an emphasis on the game context, creative strategies and analytical frameworks available to the writer. Furthermore guidelines were provided on the actual scripting of the computer game script, based on elements from drama theory. To test the script development model, a non-functional prototype (thin-slice) computer game script was developed based on the Fritz Deelman-series (Leon Rousseau). The script development model was used as guideline to establish whether the script development model could in future be used to develop a full-scale, implementable computer game script. / Thesis (M.A. (Afrikaans and Dutch))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(情報学) / 甲第22802号 / 情博第732号 / 新制||情||125(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院情報学研究科社会情報学専攻 / (主査)教授 守屋 和幸, 教授 大手 信人, 教授 河原 達也 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Informatics / Kyoto University / DGAM

This thesis is the documentation of an investigation to explore the applicability and use of indigenous African instruments in the development of primary school music curriculum for Zimbabwe. Although music is regarded as one of the compulsory subjects of the Zimbabwean primary school curriculum, it is noted with concern that western musical arts ideas are prominent in the school syllabus hence, they underline the whole essence of music teaching in the post-independence Zimbabwean education system. This is done at the expense of indigenous African musical arts practices that learners can easily identify with in their respective local communities. The purpose of my study therefore, is to determine critical elements of a curriculum development framework for facilitating the inclusion of indigenous African instrumental performance practices as substantive music resource stuff in the westernised Zimbabwean primary school music curriculum provisions. Zimbabwe has a variety of indigenous African instruments that include mbira, mazambi, magagada, chipendani and chigufe. For the purpose of carrying out this research, three indigenous African instruments are identified as instruments of focus. These are marimba (African xylophone), ngoma (African drum) and hosho (African percussion shakers). Thus, the term indigenous African instruments is consistently used collectively to mean the identified instruments. The study also samples songs from a selected Ndau cultural arts functions such as zvipunha and zvimworoni that could be utilised as education activities for classroom music teaching and learning initiatives in Zimbabwe. The idea of including culture-inclined resource materials for music teaching in the westernised post-independence Zimbabwean primary school music education initiatives implies curriculum change and innovation. Thus, curriculum change in Zimbabwe could be viewed as a reputable way to fulfil complete socio-cultural, educational and political sovereignty towards diluting the impact of colonial repression and neo-colonialism in Zimbabwe. It is notable, however that, colonial repression in Africa has caused and is still causing a permanent dislocation between indigenous black Africans and their cultural arts practices and heritages. My study doesn’t aim to achieve piece-meal changes in the primary school curriculum. Neither does it aim to suggest a complete overhaul of the current westernised primary school music curriculum. With this study, I aim to achieve a reasonable inclusivity and fusion of divergent cultural arts opinions towards musical hybridism in the Zimbabwean musical arts education milieu. This, I believe, shall help to establish an alliance of traditional African and western arts elements to attract both domestic and international appreciation of contemporary musical arts education initiatives in the post-independence Zimbabwean society. Relevant information has been gathered through documentary analysis, interviews, participant observation and focussed discussions. The findings reveal that the majority of primary school teachers and learners need considerable cultural arts rehabilitation because colonial repression had conditioned their perceptions to see no sensible value in indigenous African instrumental performance practices as part of the school education curriculum. The study also reveals that even the training of primary school music educators in Zimbabwe is grossly inadequate. Hence, the majority of these primary school teachers are pedagogically restricted to facilitate the teaching of skills-based subjects like music at any level of the Zimbabwean education system. Therefore, it is sensible to conclude that generalist primary school teachers are unreliable education practitioners who need further education and training in order to acquire relevant competences to teach music effectively in schools. Finally, lack of human and physical resources such as music instruments and textbooks has also been viewed as another impediment factor crippling teacher performance in the teaching of music in the majority of primary schools in Zimbabwe. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2017. / Humanities Education / PhD / Unrestricted

Compassion is related to the work of counselors, yet scholars have not agreed upon a standard definition of compassion beyond a superficial dictionary explanation. A Delphi study was conducted to discover the opinions of a panel of counseling experts on the subject of compassion. The purpose of the study was to identify and define compassion as it relates to the context of professional counseling, as well as identify associated skills, attributes, and behaviors. The study also explored how experienced counselors distinguish compassion as it is experienced or expressed professionally and personally. Fifteen panelists participated in three rounds of data collection via online survey. Panelists also received feedback from subsequent rounds. Themes emerged on perceptions of compassion, skills and abilities that convey compassion, situations that create compassion obstruction, and support of knowledge, training, and education on compassion. The results indicate that assumptions exist on understanding what compassion is and how to express it in a professional manner. Results further show that compassion is an understudied and unnoticed concept that needs more examination. / Doctor of Philosophy / People generally understand compassion to be an act of understanding the pain and suffering of another person with a desire to ease their pain. However, applying the concept to the work professional counselors do can be problematic because of the codes of conduct and principles needed to keep both the counselors and clients safe. Compassion is at the heart of counseling with the goal being to help individuals and families positively focus on their mental health to improve many areas of their lives. Currently, the counseling profession recognizes the importance of compassion but needs to research this concept more fully. This study used a Delphi methodology to learn from a group of expert counselors and counselor educators how they define compassion specific to the occupation of counseling. An additional purpose was to identify things counselors do and know that express or communicate compassion in counseling settings. The group of experts revealed that counselors know the healthy boundaries needed to keep the relationships between the client and themselves healthy. Counselors also know what may get in the way of showing or feeling compassion with their clients. The results of the study did define compassion in counseling, identified ways counselors show compassion, and helped set up a way to develop compassion over the occupational lifespan.

Compared to other disciplines, software engineering as of today is still dependent on craftsmanship of highly-skilled workers. However, with constantly increasing complexity and efforts, existing software engineering approaches appear more and more inefficient. A paradigm shift towards industrial production methods seems inevitable. Recent advances in academia and practice have lead to the availability of industrial key principles in software development as well. Specialization is represented in software product lines, standardization and systematic reuse are available with component-based development, and automation has become accessible through model-driven engineering. While each of the above is well researched in theory, only few cases of successful implementation in the industry are known. This becomes even more evident in specialized areas of software engineering such as systems integration. Today’s IT systems need to quickly adapt to new business requirements due to mergers and acquisitions and cooperations between enterprises. This certainly leads to integration efforts, i.e. joining different subsystems into a cohesive whole in order to provide new functionality. In such an environment. the application of industrial methods for software development seems even more important. Unfortunately, software development in this field is a highly complex and heterogeneous undertaking, as IT environments differ from customer to customer. In such settings, existing industrialization concepts would never break even due to one-time projects and thus insufficient economies of scale and scope. This present thesis, therefore, describes a novel approach for a more efficient implementation of prior key principles while considering the characteristics of software development for systems integration. After identifying the characteristics of the field and their affects on currently-known industrialization concepts, an organizational model for industrialized systems integration has thus been developed. It takes software product lines and adapts them in a way feasible for a systems integrator active in several business domains. The result is a three-tiered model consolidating recurring activities and reducing the efforts for individual product lines. For the implementation of component-based development, the present thesis assesses current component approaches and applies an integration metamodel to the most suitable one. This ensures a common understanding of systems integration across different product lines and thus alleviates component reuse, even across product line boundaries. The approach is furthermore aligned with the organizational model to depict in which way component-based development may be applied in industrialized systems integration. Automating software development in systems integration with model-driven engineering was found to be insufficient in its current state. The reason herefore lies in insufficient tool chains and a lack of modelling standards. As an alternative, an XML-based configuration of products within a software product line has been developed. It models a product line and its products with the help of a domain-specific language and utilizes stylesheet transformations to generate compliable artefacts. The approach has been tested for its feasibility within an exemplarily implementation following a real-world scenario. As not all aspects of industrialized systems integration could be simulated in a laboratory environment, the concept was furthermore validated during several expert interviews with industry representatives. Here, it was also possible to assess cultural and economic aspects. The thesis concludes with a detailed summary of the contributions to the field and suggests further areas of research in the context of industrialized systems integration.

Concepts such as positive youth development, leadership self-efficacy, and social intelligence are salient to understanding how transformational leadership behaviors manifest in adolescents. The Youth Transformational Model exhibited in the current study establishes the positive relationship that leadership exposure (leadership experience and/or having a formal leadership role), leadership self-efficacy, and social intelligence have with transformational leadership skills (i.e. inspirational motivation and individualized consideration). High school-aged members of a youth leadership organization (N = 142) completed a survey on leadership factors and social intelligence. Leadership self-efficacy was the central component to the relationship between leadership exposure and behaviors. While having a formal leadership role was positively associated with leadership experience and self-efficacy, only leadership experience was related to leadership self-efficacy, social intelligence, and transformational leadership skills. Leadership self-efficacy and social intelligence partially mediated leadership experience and transformational leadership skills’ relationship. These findings suggest that acquiring formal titles and power do not automatically translate to being a considerate and motivational leader. Female participants possessed more positive leadership experiences and higher transformational leadership skills compared to males, yet the literature does not reflect the current findings. Transformational leadership encourages young people not to lead forcibly or from a distance, but to lead by example, care about others’ needs, be motivational, and bring out the best in people. Results highlight the importance of leadership training programs and opportunities for adolescents.

Unlike many proprietary component systems, the academic ones do not have sufficient support in integrated development environments. This the- sis analyzes development of component-based applications in terms of the SOFA 2 component system and it finds out that the main issue is an in- sufficient connection between processes of common application design and creation of particular components. Based on this analysis, it defines a subset of the UML, a universal language for application design, and its semantics regarding entities of the SOFA 2 component system. Furthermore, it creates a tool integrated to the Eclipse IDE, which enables a developer to automat- ically generate these entities from a UML component model as well as to connect this model with already existing entities enabling their automatic correction in case of model changing. This tool is designed modularly so that it is possible to easily change semantics of the model or using it for other models. Finally, this thesis analyzes possibilities of extensions of this tool for other component systems, code generation and component behaviour verification.

Os modelos de simulação devem ser ajustados para que os valores dos parâmetros e variáveis de entrada forneçam resultados que melhor representem os valores observados. Assim, face às imprecisões a que estão sujeitos os resultados obtidos a partir do ajuste, há a necessidade de implementar métodos que permitam a avaliação das incertezas, quer seja nos parâmetros de cultura ou nas variáveis de entrada do modelo. Tem-se, para a cana-de-açúcar, que a máxima produtividade de açúcar ocorre no momento em que a Pol e a biomassa de colmos (TCH) são potencializados. Sendo assim, este trabalho objetivou: (i) testar a aderência de três distribuições de probabilidade (normal, gama e Weibull) aos dados diários de temperaturas média do ar e radiação solar global, em Piracicaba, SP; (ii) simular as variáveis temperatura do ar e radiação solar global por intermédio das distribuições normal bivariada, gama e Weibull, e a precipitação por intermédio da distribuição gama; (iii) propor um modelo, utilizando abordagem determinística para a variedade de interesse, para caracterizar a variação temporal do crescimento de biomassa seca de cana-de-açúcar e estimar a ordem de magnitude do período útil de industrialização (PUI), do dia de ocorrência do valor máximo da produtividade de sacarose (expressa em TPH) e das produtividades potencial e deplecionada de cana-de-açúcar, em dois ambientes de produção; (iv) estimar as variações das produtividades potencial, deplecionada por água e TPH (ciclo cana planta) por intermédio de procedimento estocástico para os elementos do clima (temperatura, radiação fotossinteticamente ativa e precipitação). As simulações utilizando as distribuições normal bivariada e gama são apropriadas por representarem melhor os elementos do clima; o modelo para a estimação das produtividades potencial, deplecionada e de sacarose apresentou resultados satisfatórios quanto aos objetivos propostos (abordagem determinística); o desempenho das variações das produtividades ocorreu de forma semelhante, no que se refere a magnitude de valores, para as simulações utilizando as distribuições normal bivariada e gama, e apresentou tendência de superestimar os valores das produtividades, para a simulação utilizando a distribuição Weibull (abordagem estocástica dos elementos do clima). / Simulation models should be adjusted by values of parameters and input variables in order to provide results that best represent the observed values. Thus, due to inaccuracies that are subject the adjustment´s results, it is necessary to implement methods for uncertainties evaluation for either, the parameters of the culture or input variables of the model. For the sugarcane, the maximum productivity of sugar occurs when both, Pol and biomass of stems (TCH) are the maximum. The aims of this study were: (i) to verify the adherence of three probability distributions (normal, gama and Weibull) to the daily data of average air temperature and solar radiation, in Piracicaba, SP; (ii) to simulate the variables air temperature and solar radiation through the bivariate normal, gama and Weibull distributions, and precipitation through the gama distribution; (iii) to propose a model, by using deterministic approach to the genotype of interest, to characterize the temporal variation in dry matter growth of sugarcane estimating the magnitude order of the useful period of industrialization, the date of occurrence in maximum sucrose yield (expressed by TPH) and the sugarcane potential and depleted productivity, in two production environments; (iv) to estimate the variability of potential, depleted by water and TPH (sugarcane plant cycle) through a stochastic procedure for the climate elements (temperature, photosynthetically active radiation and precipitation). The simulations by using bivariate normal and gama distributions are appropriate to better represent the climate elements; the model to estimate potential, depleted and sucrose productivity showed satisfactory results for the proposed objectives (deterministic approach); yield variability was similar, as regard the magnitude of values, for the simulations by using bivariate normal and gama distributions and it presented a tendency to overestimate the productivity for simulations by using Weibull distribution (stochastic approach of climate elements).

The main aim of this thesis centred on what made effective professional development programs. As a particular case study data was collected on those programs sponsored by the Melbourne Catholic Education Office. Teachers from three schools in the North Western Metropolitan Zone of Melbourne, Australia, the principals from the three participating schools and training staff from the Catholic Education Office in Melbourne became the subjects of the study. The data collected from questionnaires was analysed in order to ascertain whether there were any common trends as to what the teachers thought was needed in effective professional development programs. The interviews with the participating principals and training staff were taped and later analysed in order to determine what they believed was the purpose of professional development and whether the programs currently being offered were effective. In addition, a list of characteristics of effective professional development was developed from the relevant research literature. The analysis of the above data was used to develop a model of effective professional development. The design of this model is cyclical. A main characteristic of the model promotes the reflection by both the participants and the training providers on what has occurred during the program and this process of reflection contributes in later development of programs in similar areas. It was also concluded that the needs and expectations from professional development of teachers and principals were different to what has been expected in past research projects. Both the teachers and principals expected that they would not be solely immersed in theory or in activities that may be used in the classroom. Instead they hoped to gain a knowledge of activities that are based on theory and develop an understanding of how these activities may be used and how they will assist in student learning. Hence, the link between the theory and its application was believed by teachers and principals to be of primary importance in professional development in order to maintain high teaching practices and in turn result in improved student learning.