This special issue of Language Learning in Higher Education is devoted to the field of language testing and assessment, an area often underrated in higher education, where other concerns tend to be more in the focus of attention. Our call for papers made clear that our aim was “to cover a wide range of interrelated themes, in theory and practice, such as assessment and self-assessment, formative and summative assessment, performance standards and standard setting, use and impact of tests, tailoring and developing tests for special purposes, backwash effects (desirable/undesirable), quality issues and ethical concerns. Also considered would be contributions dealing with programme assessment and evaluation . . .” In other words, we were inviting contributions from a wider range of perspectives than is often associated with this field. As a result, the 12 articles selected and presented here cover a rather wide variety of issues often more concerned with the users of language tests, i.e. with those who have to apply them, to develop them within their own institutional constraints, and to interpret and defend the results, than with full-time researchers talking to full-time researchers.

The study aims to achieve an understanding of the artist’s materials and techniques used by Lucky Madlo Sibiya when he created his carved and painted wood panel artworks. A survey of the artist’s materials and techniques is of great importance, because he is represented in multiple institutional, corporate and private collections – including the University of Pretoria. His carved and painted wood panel artworks are also reaching an age (at least 20 years old, as 2019 is the twentieth anniversary of his death) when they would soon require conservation and restoration, if not stored and displayed according to sound conservation conditions and standards. For best-practice conservation and restoration, in-depth knowledge of the materiality of an artwork is needed. In order to reach an in-depth knowledge of the materiality of Sibiya’s carved and painted wood panel artworks, the survey intends to examine and document through the combination of various historical, visual and analytical techniques artworks with unrefuted provenance. The analytical techniques used are popular in heritage conservation, because they are non-invasive and non-destructive. They include provenance studies, visual examination, technical photography, X-ray Fluorescence and Fourier-transform Infrared Spectroscopy. In combination, the techniques should reveal the materials and techniques Sibiya employed. This knowledge will be used to safeguard and preserve this part of South African art heritage. / Mini Dissertation (MSocSci)--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Tangible Heritage Conservation / MSocSci (Tangible Heritage Conservation) / Unrestricted

This work focuses on the use of expert systems in engineering and medicine with the use of eHealth. The aim is the creation of an expert system that utilizes available systems for measuring physiological parameters of a patient, and helps him with the primary examination before visiting the doctor. Part of this work is a description of the problems of expert systems, descriptions of the eHealth and system testing in a doctor’s office. Work created in collaboration with Honeywell.

The universally controversial issue of deaths in custody is especially pertinent to South Africa. This study was prompted due to the increasingly diminishing ability for a concerted effort at tackling this issue by all parties involved. The 5 year retrospective, descriptive case audit performed at the Pretoria Medico-Legal Laboratory aimed to evaluate the current medico-legal investigation of deaths in custody in Pretoria, South Africa. Over half of the deaths (52%) occurred as a result of police action, 30% in police custody and 18% in correctional services custody. Gunshot wounds and hangings were the number 1 and 2 most common causes of death, respectively, with homicide and suicide being the 2 most common manners of death, respectively. The principal conclusion from the results is the presence of a flawed and malfunctioning medico-legal investigation system. The introduction of a formal protocol is urgently required to provide a framework for these investigations. / Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / Forensic Medicine / MSc / Unrestricted

MRDV / Institute for Rural Development

Institute for Rural Development / MRDV

Legal practice heavily depends on the construction and evaluation of narrative accounts. The ability to legitimately narrate a series of events is a source of power that is unequally distributed in the courtroom. Grounded by a detailed empirical analysis of the court transcripts from R. v. Ghomeshi (2016), this dissertation investigates the relations of power and taken-for-granted assumptions that condition struggles over narrative construction in the sexual assault trial. The project contributes to feminist critiques of sexual assault trials by mobilizing the work of Pierre Bourdieu, which has been largely overlooked in feminist socio-legal scholarship, and by showing how the concepts of narrative capital and what I term configurational power can help us examine narrative power structures. Briefly, narrative capital refers to the speaking positions and properties that bestow authority on one’s narrative practices. The term configurational power refers to the ability to legitimately organize a set of events and experiences into a narrative whole. Through consideration of the conditions and premises that structure who can narrate, in what manner and with what legitimacy, we can better understand the factors contributing to the discrediting of certain testimonies in the courtroom. Analysing the court transcripts revealed several techniques through which the lawyers exercised configurational power and narrative domination over the complainants during the trial: disconnecting and interrupting the complainants’ accounts; highlighting the complainants’ position as unknowing characters; configuring inconsistencies in their accounts; and controlling the narrative ending. Unequal distributions of configurational power constituted a relation of domination that existed as self-evidently legitimate, a form of domination that Bourdieu refers to as symbolic violence. The standards of legal impartiality, autonomy, and objectivity, as well as cultural stock stories about sexual assault and law’s taken-for-granted view of reliable memory, were enacted in the courtroom narrative practices and contributed to the reproduction of this symbolic violence. The unequal relations of narrative capital and configurational power in the courtroom limited the complainants’ ability to narrate their victimization and allowed the defence lawyers to create narrative twists during cross-examination that framed the complainants as manipulative women and upended their claims of victimhood. Through this dissertation, I critically analyze the relations of domination that both condition and were reproduced in the courtroom practices of narrative telling and interpretation.

This is an explanatory research investigation on the role of principals as instructional leaders which has been highlighted over the past two to three decades. The emergence of this concept in the leadership field and the rigorous research attention that it has received is a result of mounting pressure faced by principals as a result of the year-on-year poor performance of learners in the matriculation examinations. Parents, politicians and other organs of civil society expect principals to be accountable for what happens in the classroom (teaching and learning), including the performance of learners. The poor performance of learners in the matriculation examinations is the central focus of this study, growing out of the discussions and arguments which have dominated the media, social and political groupings, government, as well as the business sector. All these groupings and institutions are perturbed about the decline of learner performance in the matriculation examinations and seek possible solutions to this problem. I was therefore intrigued by the above concerns, which motivated me to engage in this study. This study set out to investigate the variables related to instructional leadership and the contribution of these variables to learner performance. The study was guided by the following research question: What are the variables related to instructional leadership practices of secondary school principals and what is their effect on the pass rate in the matriculation examinations? In order to respond to the above question, the following subsidiary questions were examined: a. How can instructional leadership possibly contribute to the improvement of learner performance? b. How do heads of department (HODs) and deputy principals perceive the role of their principals regarding instructional leadership? c. How are principals prepared with regard to their role as instructional leaders? This study followed an explanatory, mixed method research approach, utilising two sets of questionnaires (one for principals and another for HODs and deputy principals), semi-structured interviews, and focus group interviews. Seventy eight principals completed questionnaires regarding the performance of their learners. One hundred and thirty-seven deputy principals and HODs completed questionnaires regarding their principals‟ roles in instructional leadership and contribution to learner performance. The interviewing process took place in two stages / phases. During the first phase, a group of sixty principals was exposed to the four variables which underpin this study, namely: a. The principals’ role in promoting frequent and appropriate school-wide teacher development activities; b. Defining and communicating shared vision and goals; c. Monitoring and providing feedback on the teaching and learning process; and d. Managing the curriculum and instruction. In fifteen groups of four, the respondents brainstormed the strength of each variable and prioritised or arranged them in order of their importance and contribution to learner achievement. The outcome of this first phase of the interview process and the findings from the analysis of the questionnaires informed the formulation of questions for the face-to-face interviews with five principals who were randomly selected from the seventy eight principals who participated in the completion of the questionnaires for the quantitative part of this study. The key insights and contributions drawn from this study make it unique in the sense that it: <ul><li> has an impact on the preparation of principals for their role as instructional leaders; </li><li> informs the support that principals need with regard to their practice as instructional leaders; </li><li> assists principals to identify appropriate variables to help align their own visions for their schools with the national, provincial and regional visions for the improvement of learner achievement; </li><li> adds value to the existing body of knowledge on instructional leadership and the central role that it plays in improving the achievement levels of learners in the National Senior Certificate; and </li><li> clarifies the fact that "leadership" is not a semantic substitute for "management and administration", but rather an independent construct which is capable of interacting with the latter in the practice of education. </li></ul> / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Education Management and Policy Studies / unrestricted

Zur deskriptiven Darstellung der kardiologischen Untersuchung von Golden Retrievern wurden 50 vorberichtlich und klinisch gesunde Hunde der genannten Rasse untersucht. Die Probanden erfuhren eine allgemeine klinische Untersuchung mit besonderer Beurteilung des Herz-Kreislaufsystems, eine Blutdruckmessung, eine elektrokardiografische sowie eine echokardiografische Untersuchung. Zur Abklärung systemischer Erkrankungen, die die Herz-Kreislauffunktion beeinflussen können, wurden zudem Blutuntersuchungen durchgeführt. Während der klinischen Untersuchung lag die Herzfrequenz der Probanden bei 97,7 ± 28,0 Schlägen pro Minute. Auskultatorisch konnte bei keinem der Probanden ein besonderer Befund erhoben werden. Der Blutdruck wurde bei den untersuchten Tieren mittels Doppler-Sphygmomanometrie ermittelt. Dabei ergab sich ein systolischer Blutdruck von 152,5 ± 24,0 mmHg. Vier der Golden Retriever waren mit einem systolischen Blutdruck von 200 bis 220 mmHg hypertensiv. Mehrere Hunde wiesen zudem grenzwertig hohe Blutdruckwerte zwischen 160 und 180 mmHg auf. Anhand der durchgeführten Untersuchungen konnte keine Ursache für diese systemische Hypertension gefunden werden. Folgeerscheinungen der Hypertension ließen sich nicht nachweisen. Wahrscheinlich handelt es sich hierbei um eine aufregungsassoziierte kurzfristige Blutdruckerhöhung. Anhand der Laboruntersuchungen konnten geringgradige Veränderungen festgestellt werden, die allerdings keinen Einfluss auf die kardiale Funktion haben sollten. Mit Hilfe der elektrokardiografischen Untersuchung konnten keine Arrhythmien nachgewiesen werden. Acht der untersuchten 50 Hunde wurden aufgrund morphologischer pathologischer Veränderungen von der Erhebung echokardiografischer Referenzwerte ausgeschlossen, um eine Beeinflussung der Normalparameter zu verhindern. Von den Golden Retrievern mit pathologischen Veränderungen wiesen sieben eine geringgradige Subaortensstenose auf und ein Hund eine systolische Dysfunktion in Form einer okkulten dilatativen Kardiomyopathie. Anhand der durchgeführten Untersuchungen konnten echokardiografische Normalparameter für den Golden Retriever etabliert werden. Ähnliche Untersuchungen anderer Hunderassen zeigen die Wichtigkeit der Etablierung rassespezifischer Referenzwerte auf. Sieben der vorberichtlich und klinisch gesunden Golden Retriever wiesen eine geringgradige Subaortenstenose auf, einer eine okkulte Kardiomyopathie. Aufgrund der Gefahr der Vererbung der genannten Erkrankungen kann durch die vorliegende Untersuchung gezeigt werden, wie wichtig eine kardiologische Screening-Untersuchung von Golden Retrievern vor Zuchtnutzung ist.

Die Motivation für die vorliegende Arbeit entstammt zwei Promotionsprojekten, die sich mit höchst unterschiedlichen Fragestellungen befassen, auf Grund des gleichen betrieblichen Umfeldes aber auf eine ähnliche Problemstellung gestoßen sind: Praktisch funktioniert die Anwendung bestimmter Methoden im betrieblichen Umfeld nicht, obwohl dies aus betriebsmorphologischer Sicht möglich sein sollte. Daher zeigt sich ein Defizit hinsichtlich der Abgrenzung zu anderen Bereichen bzw. Betrieben. Etablierte Betriebstypen reichen für die hinreichend genaue Beschreibung des untersuchten Produktionssystems somit nicht aus. Das Ziel dieser Arbeit ist daher die Diskussion und Entwicklung eines morphologischen Schemas, das eine Differenzierung von Merkmalen erlaubt, die im Hinblick veränderter unternehmerischer Rahmenbedingungen an Bedeutung gewinnen. Insbesondere wird die Möglichkeit geschaffen anhand des Schemas bzw. dessen Auswertung aufzuzeigen, wie sich die Rahmenbedingungen in betrieblichen Strukturen und Prozessen widerspiegeln. Zudem wird eine differenzierte Betrachtung einzelner Betriebsbereiche ermöglicht, ohne dabei das Gesamtbild des Betriebes aus dem Blickfeld zu rücken. Darüber hinaus werden die gebräuchlichen Betriebstypen auf Basis des definierten Merkmalsschemas um die 'variantenreiche Kleinserienfertigung' erweitert. In diesem Betriebstyp werden insbesondere Anforderungen und Strukturen abgebildet, die sich heute häufig in deutschen Maschinenbauunternehmen finden.