The First World War was the United States’ first significant foray into European conflict and their first war as part of a major international coalition. The inadequacy of the US Army for the conflict forced them to rely on extensive support from its allies to successfully prosecute the war. For most members of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF), the ally with which they most closely associated with was France who provided substantial amounts of equipment, training, and guidance. Most work on bilateral Franco-American relations during the period focus on high level diplomatic and military relations between the leaders of both nations and casts the state of relations as being antagonistic. This paper examines the more mundane experiences of AEF members with French soldiers and civilians and how those experiences shaped American views of themselves and their allies. By examining the American relationship with the French on and off the battlefield, it provides a view of the alliance outside of the staterooms and war rooms and re-examines previous characterisations of the relationship. The first chapter examines American relations with French civilians in port towns, in billets, and on leave through the opinions and behaviour of members of the AEF. The second and third chapter focus on the relationship with the French military not only through American opinions about the military competence of their ally but also examines the development of an American military identity apart from and in opposition to the French. American experience in the war allowed Americans not only to form stronger relationships than generally acknowledged with the French but also allowed them to develop a stronger sense of their own identity as a people and a country.

Our work focuses on bringing the first-order reasoning closer to practicalapplications, particularly in software and hardware verification. The aim is to develop techniques that make first-order reasoners more scalablefor large problems and suitable for the applications. In pursuit of this goal the work focuses in three main directions. First, wedevelop an algorithm for an efficient pre-selection of axioms. This algorithmis already being widely used by the community and enables off-the-shelf theoremprovers to work with problems having millions of axioms that would otherwisebe overwhelming for them. Secondly, we focus on the saturation algorithm itself, and develop anew calculus for separate handling of propositional predicates. We also do anextensive research on various ways of clause splitting within the saturationalgorithm. The third main block of our work is focused on the use of saturation basedfirst-order theorem provers for software verification, particularly forgenerating invariants and computing interpolants. We base our work on theoretical results of Kovacs and Voronkov published in2009 on the CADE and FASE conferences. We develop a practical implementationwhich embraces all the extensions of the basic resolution and superposition calculus that are contained in the theorem prover Vampire. We have also developed a unique proof transforming algorithm which optimizes the computed interpolantswith respect to a user specified cost function.

M.Comm. / Riding the wave of change is a challenge that companies often take on but just as often fail in. First National Bank decided to take on such a challenge when they merged with FirstRand Ltd. Moving from a second to a third wave company was a challenge not only management faced, but all the employees of First National Bank. The wave change required changes in various aspects of the company, for example management styles, company structure and culture of the company. A performance decline was experienced during the process of restructuring. Therefore management had to ensure that employees were motivated and focused throughout the period of change. However is it possible to keep employees motivated and focused? During this process of change the atmosphere among employees was tense and stressful. How does management assure their employees that the change is beneficial for them as well as for the company? Managing the change and ensuring that it is successful is a responsibility that lies heavily on management's shoulders. How does management guarantee successful change management? The aim of this study is to examine how First National Bank and FirstRand ensured a successful third wave change.

New teachers begin the school year with optimism and enthusiasm, but their excitement quickly wanes as they encounter the realities of the everyday life of a teacher. When they do not experience the successes they predicted, many begin to doubt their capabilities, which results in a lowered sense of teaching efficacy. This descriptive study was designed to identify the contextual factors novice teachers perceive as influences on personal teaching efficacy and to examine the relationships between the factors. Two groups of novice teachers who were concurrently enrolled in a post-baccalaureate accelerated educator preparation program and working as first-year teachers were the participants in the study. Data were gathered for the study through focus group activities, twice weekly journal entries completed during the teaching year, and a culminating “lessons learned” paper written during the last month of the first year of teaching. Each of the two focus groups identified nine contextual factors they perceived to affect personal teaching efficacy. Six factors were identified by both groups: parental involvement, support from administrators and colleagues, classroom discipline, testing results, teaching strategies and outcomes, and relationships with administrators and colleagues. The groups, however, perceived the relationships between the contextual factors differently. The generalists perceived recursive relationships between the factors, while the content group perceived a linear relationship.

As a modernist, Virginia Woolf aimed at the modernisation of existing forms of artistic expression. However, she was also a very historically aware author. Thus the main issues and questions that this dissertation aims at investigating are Woolf’s views on, approach to and use of history and the past in three major novels: Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927) and Between the Acts (1941). After a brief exposition of some of Woolf’s general views on history and inherited cultural constructions and how these contrast with traditional nineteenth and early twentieth century approaches to history, the argument progresses to explore history and the past in each of the three novels respectively. The choice of novels aims at reflecting something of the scope and range of her concerns with history and the past. The chapter on Mrs Dalloway is mainly concerned with the manner in which Woolf deals with a profound historical event like the First World War and her dual vision of history as both a source of tragedy and as a form of assurance for the continuation of life. In the chapter dealing with To the Lighthouse as its main focus, Woolf’s response to her personal past and the preceding cultural era will be explored, as well as her attempt to achieve a form of balance between the present and the past through artistic portrayal. In the discussion of the last novel Woolf wrote, Between the Acts, her response to history in the making and her views on how the course of history can be altered will be dealt with. Finally, the conclusion considers the implications of this study in the contexts of Woolf as a modernist and an experimental novelist and in the light of the critical views that perceive Woolf as inadequately responsive to history and social issues.</p / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / English / MA / unrestricted

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between participation in a retention program designed to promote academic and social integration and the persistence rates of first generation, low-income college students at an urban, public multiethnic university. Archival data were collected from the university’s Office of Institutional Research and the retention program office and included SAT/ACT scores, GPA, gender, ethnicity, and program participation data. A total of 292 first-generation, low-income students who were admitted to the university in the summer of 1999 were identified for the study. A group of 166 students were selected for the comparison group because they had not participated in the retention program; 126 students had participated in the retention program. Three major research questions guided this study: (a) Are there differences in persistence rates and other academic characteristics of underprepared, low-income, first generation college students who participate and do not participate in the retention program?; (b) Does involvement in the retention program predict student persistence of first generation low-income, underprepared students?, and (c) Can predictors of GPA be identified for students in the retention program using program and descriptive variables? A series of logistic regression analyses were conducted to assess the relationship between various retention services and the persistence and graduation rates of participants. The results showed that there were statistically significant relationships between participation and non-participation in the retention program and having higher GPAs and higher graduation and persistence rates. Of the four program features, participation in tutoring, workshops, and social events were found to be predictors of graduation. College GPA was also found to be a predictor of graduation for all students. The results also showed that women were more likely to graduate than men.

First generation and low income college students continue to experience outcome differences despite higher education’s efforts to reduce inequality. Despite abundant research exploring intelligence mindset, there have been few attempts to explore relationships between mindset and scarcity. To reduce this gap in knowledge, and support student success, this study explored relationships between scarcity and beliefs about intelligence – including the intelligence mindset of students and the failure mindset of parents – as well as the connection between scarcity and student demographics. Survey research design was used, and participants were gathered using a census of undergraduate students of a Midwest university in spring 2020 (N = 9,760). Results indicate scarcity continues to be of vital importance to the discussion about inequity in higher education, as found in the direct relationships between perceived scarcity and student demographics, and the indirect relationship of perceived scarcity with intelligence mindset through perceived failure mindset of parents.

Over the course of the past few decades, first-generation college students have been analyzed from many angles. With research ranging from quantitative reviews of lower graduation and retention rates, as well as higher attrition rates (Engle & Tinto, 2008; Inman & Mayes, 1999; Terenzini et al., 1996; Tinto, 1975), to qualitative case studies focusing on the psychological aspects of preparation, parental support, and identity formation (Lara, 1992; London, 1989; Rendón, 1992; Rodriguez, 1975 1982; Skinner & Richardson, 1988; Weis, 1985), this population has been well documented across a spectrum of research methodologies. More recently, scholarly attention has shifted toward a more individualized approach, focusing on smaller cohorts within the larger first-generation college student population (Collier & Morgan, 2008; Covarrubias et al., 2019; McCoy, 2014; Phinney & Haas, 2003). The goal of this three-article dissertation is to highlight and prioritize first-generation college students’ voices and narratives by emphasizing their lived experiences, as well as reviewing the support services currently available to them. This goal is addressed using three distinct, yet interconnected articles all utilizing different research methodologies. The first article, a phenomenological case study, addressed the experiences of six female first-generation college student caregivers (Orbe, 2004; Pyne & Means, 2013; Covarrubias et al., 2019) at a large, prestigious, research-driven institution in the Northeast. The second study, a singular, narrative case study, utilized the construct of intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1994; Pyne & Means, 2013) to examine the experiences of a female, first-generation college student caregiver of color as she navigated the higher education system. The last article, a comparative case study, examined the available first-gen support programming at three institutions in the same metropolitan area. This final study also included administrator perspectives about what is required to implement and execute first-generation college student support initiatives. The major implications of this dissertation project include the following: a strong recommendation for increased intersectionality in all first-gen support programming; a discovery of the causational relationship of being a first-gen caregiver and the added difficulty that multi-layered identity creates; a demonstration of the need to motivate and utilize collected student data in order to inform first-gen program creation; and a recognition of the stressors placed on certain campus stakeholders and the need for enhanced cross-campus collaboration to improve first-generation college student support. Future research and specific recommendations for the field of higher education are discussed.

Le choix du prénom chez le trans, s’agit d’une thèse qui fait des approches à la question trans à partir de la clinique psychanalytique proposée par Sigmund Freud et Jacques Lacan.À la question principale sur laquelle repose cette recherche –comment une personne peut-elle changer de prénom (et de sexe ou de genre) ? –, s'y ajoute une autre, qui vise à se demander s’il est justifié ou non –et pourquoi– de continuer à faire une différenciation structurelle basée sur les critères de la psychanalyse.Dans la tension entre ces deux questions réside tout l’effort de l’auteure pour parvenir à une réflexion qui se réfère à la théorie psychanalytique mais qui prend racine dans ce qui interroge la théorie, voire la conteste, c’est à dire la complexité des rencontres cliniques avec des personnes trans.L’ensemble de la recherche s’appuie sur trois ensembles de travaux : la psychiatrie et la théorie queer des États-Unis ; la psychiatrie, la sexologie et le féminisme du Mexique, et la psychanalyse de France. Spécifiquement par rapport à l’enseignement de Lacan, considérant que la caractéristique du travail fait appel à la question du choix du prénom, la période à laquelle se circonscrit la thèse va de 1961 –l'année où il a commencé son séminaire L’identification– à 1965 –celle consacrée aux Problèmes cruciaux de la psychanalyse–, période au cours de laquelle Lacan travaille davantage sur la question du nom propre. Cette délimitation n'exclut pas, cependant, lorsqu'il a été nécessaire, de faire des liens vers d'autres moments de son enseignement, en tenant compte de leur contexte et de leur pertinence pour le développement.L'ensemble se compose de huit chapitres, divisés en deux sections : dans la première, du chapitre un au chapitre quatre, est développé le cadre théorique ; dans la deuxième, du chapitre cinq au chapitre huit, est développé le thème du prénom et son choix chez les trans / The choice of the first name in the trans, is a thesis that makes approximations to the trans question from the psychoanalytic clinic proposed by Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan.To the main question that gives rise to this investigation - how is it that a person can change their name (and sex / gender)? -, one more is added, which aims to ask whether it is justified or not -and why- continue making a structural differentiation based on the criteria of psychoanalysis.In the tension between these two questions lies the author's effort to formulate a reflection that refers to psychoanalytic theory but that takes root in what interrogates the theory, and even discusses it based on the complexity of clinical encounters with transgender people. The whole of the research is based on three working groups: psychiatry and queer theory of the United States; psychiatry, sexology and feminism of Mexico, and psychoanalysis of France.Specifically in relation to the teaching of Lacan, considering that the specificity of the work appeals to the question of the choice of the first name, the period to which it is circumscribed goes from 1961 -Year in which his seminar begins, The identification- to 1965 -that dedicated to the crucial problems for psychoanalysis-, a period in which Lacan works with greater emphasis, the question of the proper name. This necessary delimitation does not exclude, however, when it was necessary, the presence of links to other moments of its teaching, taking into account the context of them and the pertinence within the development.The structure of this research consists of eight chapters, which are divided into two sections: from the first to the fourth, the theoretical elements - theoretical framework - that will support the second section, which goes from chapter five to eight, where it is specifically developed the theme of the first name and its choice in trans people

It is the intent of this study to investigate an aspect of the accuracy of first impressions and the stability of attitudes formed on the basis of these impressions. The study of first impressions and their influence on behavior is one aspect of the general topic of person perception.