<p> The purpose of this study will be to completely trace and elucidate the evolution of St. Catherines, Ontario. In addition to historical developments, the present functions of the city, the part played by internal units, and the role of the city in the eastern Niagara peninsula will be considered. </p> / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

The objective of this work is to determine whether the political instability has had a significant impact on the development of Quebec during the last 35 years. The method of approach is to examine whether there is a correlation between economic indicators and political instability. In the first part the history of French Canadians, from the first settlements to the crucial political events of the 20th century are examined. Since this study is based on a time-correlation between political events and changes in socio-economic indicators, special attention is paid to the reception and interpretation of events by historians, the media and opinion leaders. As a next step the development of economic and socio-demographic indicators during the last 40 years is examined. Factors studied include gross domestic product, investment, consumption, and unemployment as well as demographic and demolinguistic indicators. In order to ensure that changes in factors are linked to political instability comparisons with other provinces, notably with Ontario, and other countries are made in the conclusion it will be summarized that a direct relation between separatism and Quebec's long-term economic development cannot be demonstrated by examining macro-economic indicators. However, the October crisis of 1960 and the referendum of 1995 had short-term negative impacts on Quebec's economic development. Other factors such as the French language legislation of 1977, which further accentuated Quebec's special linguistic status in North America and the historical differences between the development of the French, Catholic society and the English, Protestant one better explain the existing differences between Quebec and the rest of Canada.

The main aim of this diploma thesis is to prove the impact of pupil?s acquired knowledge of English on their writing in German. In the theoretical part the historical development of both languages is shown with the emphasis on such historical events that determined this development. It is because of these events that each language developed in a different way. In the next chapter both languages are compared and the most important differences are pointed out. Next chapters are about Anglicisms in German, multilingualism and transfer, on this basis information are transferred from one language to another. The topic of last chapter in this part is ?error?. The practical part supports the theoretical knowledge gained by languages-comparing in a practical situation. On the basis of the corrections of upper primary school level German essays with the emphasis on the errors caused by the interference for English the practical part presents not only interesting results gained from many points of view, it also proves the impact of pupil?s acquired knowledge of English on their writing in German. Subsequently, the particular language areas are presented in which this type of errors was the most common. The authentically chosen errors are also commented on. The last part of the work includes various kinds of didactic material that can be used by such teachers of the German language who want to prevent this type of mistakes in their lessons.

Czechoslovakia, as a common state of Czechs and Slovaks, dissolved after 74 years of existence. The thesis is conducted as a historical analysis whose aim to analyse the causes of the dissolution of Czechoslovakia and to identify their historical origins. The theoretical framework which accompanies the analytical part is based on Gellner's nationalism theory, Deutsch’s theory of social communication and theoretical conditions regarding the coexistence of nations in multinational states. The thesis demonstrates that the Czech-Slovak convergence, created by the utilization of the Czech language in Slovakia, geopolitical closeness and belonging to the same cultural circle, was not sufficient enough to overcome the administrative borders which contributed to the Czech-Slovak bipolarity. The analysis shows that even though the dissolution was an issue of political elites, the partition was predominantly caused by the Czech-Slovak dualism which was an after-effect of asynchronous historical development in two different state formations. The heterogeneous historical development resulted in retardation of the Slovak nationalism and unequal positions of the Czechs and Slovaks during Czechoslovakia. This was reflected in different perspectives on the common state and consequent differences in political cultures of Czechs and Slovaks.

Historical development and current regulation of the child allowance in the Czech Republic This thesis describes the development of monetary social allowance paid by state to dependent children. The work revealed that the child allowance is relatively new legal institution first recorded in 1922 in the act that increased incomes of government employees and their family members implicitly. This fact has appeared as a disadvantage of the thesis as it is difficult to define it in comparison to other traditional legal institutions determined, adapted and accepted from Roman law jurisprudence. The thesis deals with the child allowance defined in current legislation as well as with a former education allowances that were of the same form and the current allowances are based on this type. It is abstracted from the chronological outline of the first part as well as the content of the rights and obligations of entities associated with these allowances as well as the common body - the monetary support from the state used for dependent children. An identical object and the rights and obligations arising from it can be found in the content of similar allowances, but due to the extent of the theses there were no possibility to include these in the text. The thesis is divided in two parts. The first part...

Thesis (Ph.D. (Afrikaans en Nederlands)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

The topic of this master thesis is the historical investigation of kitchen tools that evolved towards a multifunctional nature. The history of kitchen tools will be discussed with particular attention given to industrialization, technological developments and the effects of mechanization. Following this analysis, there will be a classification that could serve as a resource material for future studies, made according to the activity flow within the kitchen, in order to understand the interrelations within and between these products. This classification will be put forward in the form of a visual table that includes morphological analyses of specifically mixing and beating tools under the topic of food preparation, how they developed historically following the industrial revolution, and how they carry a tendency to become increasingly multifunctional. According to this table, the dispositions and interrelations of these products will be considered, concluding with a situational analysis and previsions for future designs and studies.

Though scholars have assessed the unilateral presidency with renewed interests, the literature remains weak in three important areas. What relation, if any, exists between the public and presidential unilateral actions? What impact does the judiciary have on unilateral presidential power? To what extent do presidents use the many tools in the unilateral policy toolchest? The three essays in this dissertation address each of these questions in term. Results have implications for both the unilateral presidency and broader works in executive decision-making and democratic governance.

This study is an attempt at consolidating in a single source the inclusive history of the development of Afrikaans since 1652, as well as the various perspectives on the origins of Afrikaans put forward from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century. As a consequence of sociopolitical circumstances in South Africa, the various role-players involved in the origins and development of Afrikaans have not all been adequately taken account of in the description of the history of the Afrikaans language. This has contributed to the prevalence of inaccurate perceptions about the origins of Afrikaans. Amongst others, these misperceptions have let to the teaching of the history of Afrikaanspredominantly focusing on the (white) historical Eastern variety and on standard Afrikaans, minimising the existence of any possible Creole influences on the language. For purposes of this study, the inclusive history of the development of Afrikaans since 1652 was rewritten in order to take account of the influence of all the role players (the Europeans from the West, the indigenous Koina from Africa, and the slaves brought from Asia) on the origins and development of Afrikaans. A further aim of this rewriting was to evaluate and consolidate, chronologically, the approximately 40 perspectives on the origins of Afrikaans against the background of the socio-political milieu within which these perspectives developed. Some aspects of this rewritten history of Afrikaans were taught by means of a series of lessons to learners in regions representative of areas where sub-varieties of the three historical Afrikaans varieties are spoken and heard. The aim was to determine whether series of lessons, similar to the one used in this study, could be regarded (and recommended) as an appropriate presentation method to disseminate the inclusive history of the development of Afrikaans among the school-going youth. Knowledge of and insight in the inclusive history of the development of Afrikaans may contribute to the process of reconciliation in South Africa, because this history suggests that Afrikaans is the collective creation of Afrikaans-speaking citizens' ancestors: Europeans from the West, indigenous Koina from Africa, and slaves brought from the East. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Afrikaans en Nederlands)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

This work constitutes a macro-sociological study of suicide. The empirical focus is on suicide mortality in Russia, which is among the highest in the world and has, moreover, developed in a dramatic manner over the second half of the 20th century. Suicide mortality in contemporary Russia is here placed within the context of development over a longer time period through empirical studies on 1) the general and sex- and age-specific developments in suicide over the period 1870–2007, 2) underlying dynamics of Russian suicide mortality 1956–2005 pertaining to differences between age groups, time periods, and particular generations and 3) the continuity in the aggregate-level relationship between heavy alcohol consumption and suicide mortality from late Tsarist period to post-World War II Russia. In addition, a fourth study explores an alternative to Émile Durkheim’s dominating macro-sociological perspective on suicide by making use of Niklas Luhmann’s theory of social systems. With the help of Luhmann’s macro-sociological perspective it is possible to consider suicide and its causes also in terms of processes at the individual level (i.e. at the level of psychic systems) in a manner that contrasts with the ‘holistic’ perspective of Durkheim. The results of the empirical studies show that Russian suicide mortality, despite its exceptionally high level and dramatic changes in the contemporary period, shares many similarities with the patterns seen in Western countries when examined over a longer time period. Societal modernization in particular seems to have contributed to the increased rate of suicide in Russia in a manner similar to what happened earlier in Western Europe. In addition, the positive relationship between heavy alcohol consumption and suicide mortality proved to be remarkably stable across the past one and a half centuries. These results were interpreted using the Luhmannian perspective on suicide developed in this work.