This study explores nature as a source of inspiration in Zulu poetry. With the exception of the introductory and concluding chapters all chapters are structurally similar. Each chapter consists of an introduction, communication of meaning, elements of poetry employed to communicate meaning, types of poems and observations and conclusion. Chapter 1 deals with the aim of the study, definition of terms, motivation, delimitation of scope of study and research methodology. Chapter 2 discuses poetry of the period between 1935 and 1945. Chapter 3 looks at poetry of the period between 1946 and 1955. Chapter 4 deals with poetry of the period between 1956 and 1965. Chapter 5 investigates poetry of the period between 1966 and 1975. Chapter 6 focuses on observations and conclusion. / African Languages / MA (African Languages)

The Evangelical Reformed Church is celebrating its sixtieth anniversary. This study investigates this church's unique view of Scripture and places it within the broader context of a Reformed approach. To this end, a literary study is conducted, whereby the Evangelical Reformed conviction is compared to that of Calvin and Barth, as put forward in their Institutions and Church Dogmatics, respectively. This procedure allows for a collation of the Evangelical Reformed stance and the Reformed view. Since the belief regarding Scripture has an effect on many aspects of the traditional reformed dogma, several bibliological facets are singled out, namely, revelation, authority, inspiration, and the inception of the canon. By way of illustration, these details are considered with specific reference to the Reformed doctrine of Predestination. The goal of this exercise is to evaluate the application of the bibliological dogma in the formulation of theology. / Systematic Theology & Theological Ethics / M.Th

There are a lot of different business strategies for any company. However, in the fashion industry, the best way to become successful is to develop the brand using special branding strategies. Hence, a brand is the main weapon for fashion companies, which helps to launch international market and to create loyal customers around the world. Nowadays, due to the difficult current political situations and the collapse of oil and the dollar a lot of companies in different industries have to change their business strategies. It is especially true for fashion companies, because they depend on consumers ' income and their purchasing power. In the case of the fashion industry, branding strategy development can be more effective, than just business strategy. Hence, this thesis discusses the following problem: What branding strategy should Russian and Swedish fashion companies choose in order to build a strong brand and enter the international market.  The purpose of this thesis is to analyze various branding strategies of Russian and Swedish fashion companies during the process of entering foreign markets. At the end of this thesis, practical contribution in their process of international branding strategy creation will be discussed. In order to answer research questions more broadly and accurately, the mixed research method, using quantitive and qualitative study through interviews and survey was chosen. Semi-structured interviews were made with the CEO and brand managers of Russian and Swedish fashion companies. Moreover, the survey was made with two different questionnaires: for Russian and for Swedish customers. In the case of qualitative research, the author found that fashion companies from Russia and Sweden have got not just some features and differences, but also common aspects. The primary data from interviews allowed the author to understand the specifics of brand management in the fashion industry. It was found, that there are some useful aspects in Swedish strategies, which can be used by Russian companies to develop their brands on the international market. In the case of quantitative research, preferences of consumers from Russia and Sweden were analyzed and also some features were identified. Survey results provided the author with a common understanding about purchase habits, attitudes and perceptions to fashion brands. According to these, some hypothesizes, which are formulated in the first part of the thesis, have been proven or disproven. It was found, that preferences of Russian and Swedish people are pretty the same, however Russian customers do not like to risk with new brands and prefer well-known and trusted brands while Swedish customers are open for any brand, which can satisfy their tastes.

This thesis deals with a training of primary school teachers in the Czech Republic and in the French-speaking part of Belgium. It is a comparative study analyzing corresponding systems of tertiary education. In detail it describes selected examples of education used by the Faculty of Education of Charles University in Prague and the École normale catholique du Brabant Wallon at Haute Ecole Léonard de Vinci in Louvain - la - Neuve. For the purpose of mutual inspiration it presents individual curricula of both universities, the relationship of theory and practice in the studies and, based on author`s own observations and experience, reflections of two specific issues from each institution which are interesting and unique. It also presents problems of professional competence of teachers who apply for teacher training. Because such paper is already valid in Belgium, while in the Czech Republic it is still in progress. Both schools have a lot to offer for its current students, but there is always space for further development.

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Les neurones impulsionnels prennent en compte une caractéristique fondamentale des neurones biologiques : la capacité d'encoder l'information sous forme d'événements discrets. Nous nous sommes intéressés à l'apport de ce type de modèles dans le cadre de la vision artificielle, dont les contraintes nous ont orienté vers le choix de modèles simples, adaptés à la rapidité de traitement requise. Nous décrivons une architecture de réseaux pour encoder et extraire des saillances utilisant la discrétisation induite par les neurones impulsionnels. La carte de saillances est obtenue à partir de la combinaison, spatiale et temporelle, de différentes cartes de modalités visuelles (contrastes, orientations et couleurs) à différentes échelles spatiales. Nous proposons une méthode de filtrage neuronal pour construire les cartes de modalité visuelle. Cette méthode réalise le filtrage de façon graduelle : plus le temps de traitement alloué à l'algorithme est important, plus le résultat est proche de celui obtenu avec un filtrage par convolution. L'architecture proposée donne en sortie les saillances triées temporellement dans l'ordre de leur importance. Nous avons placé en aval de cette architecture un autre réseau de neurones impulsionnels, s'inspirant des champs neuronaux, qui permet de sélectionner la zone la plus saillante et de maintenir une activité constante sur cette zone. Les résultats expérimentaux montrent que l'architecture proposée est capable d'extraire des saillances dans une séquence d'images, de sélectionner la saillance la plus importante et de maintenir la focalisation sur cette saillance, même dans un contexte bruité ou quand la saillance se déplace.

Ce travail, première monographie consacrée à Roger Munier et à l'ensemble de son œuvre, se propose de penser conjointement poésie et philosophie autour de la question des processus de désubjec

The importance of passion increases with the extent of sorrow. While money can replace the passion by offering the opportunity to buy the added value for oneself and the society, social enterprises, artists and start-up organizations have bigger issues to organize the necessary resources. Passion is inevitable for making a difference in the society while suffering a lack of money. Thus, the presence of a certain obsession is a favorable situation for smaller organizations in order to go through difficulties. This thesis investigates the miracle of passion in order to gain an understanding about the ability of leading passionate people. Theories and experiences from passionate individuals are combined in this research paper and suggest different perspectives a leader must consider by leading passion. I assume the social interaction between leaders and followers which result in a mutual influence of behavior and performance. This thesis is focused on the perspective of passionate followership and elucidates factors that are needed to act passionate as well as the role of the leader within this passionate environment.

L’esthétique de Madame de Staël and Mary Shelley discute l’art de l’improvisation et le concept de l’enthousiasme dans les écrits de ces deux auteurs. Dans ce projet, j’explore l’esthétique d’improvisation et d’enthousiasme de Madame de Staël dans Corinne, en me référant à son autre roman Delphine, à sa pièce de théâtre Sapho, et à ses nouvelles ainsi qu’à ses textes philosophiques comme De l’Allemagne, De l’influence des passions, et De la littérature. J’argumente que Madame de Staël représente à travers le caractère de Corinne une esthétique anti-utilitaire. J’explique qu’elle évoque des valeurs cosmopolites qui valorisent une culture indigène qui est en opposition avec l’impérialisme de Napoléon. De plus, j’examine comment les improvisations de Corinne dérivent d’un enthousiasme qui est associé à la définition que Platon offre du terme. Ceci est évident par la signification que Madame de Staël présente du terme dans De L’Allemagne. J’interprète la maladie de Corinne comme étant d’origine psychosomatique qui est manifesté par la perte de son génie et par un suicide lent qui est une expression de colère contre la patriarchie. Le caractère de Corinne permet à Madame de Staël d’explorer le conflit que les femmes artistes éprouvaient entre ayant une carrière artistique et adhérant à l’idéologie domestique. Chapitre deux se concentre sur l’intérêt que Shelley démontre sur l’art de l’improvisation comme elle l’exprime dans ses lettres à propos de l’improvisateur Tommaso Sgricci. Malgré sa fascination avec la poésie extemporanée, Shelley regrette que cette forme d’art soit évanescente. Aussi, j’examine son enthousiasme pour un autre artiste, Nicolò Paganini. Son enchantement avec se violoniste virtuose est lié à des discours concernant le talent surnaturel des improvisateurs. J’argumente qu’il y a un continuum d’improvisation entre les balades orales du peuple et les improvisations de culture sophistiqué des improvisateurs de haute société. J’estime que les Shelleys collaboraient à définir une théorie d’inspiration à travers leurs intérêts pour l’art de l’improvisation. Chapitre trois considère le lien entre cosmologie et esthétique d’inspiration à travers la fonction de la musique, spécialement La Création de Joseph Haydn, dans The Last Man de Shelley. J’examine la représentation du sublime des Alpes dans le roman à travers de discours qui associent les Alpes avec les forces primordiales de la création. Les rôles de la Nécessité, Prophétie, et du Temps peuvent être compris en considérant la musique des sphères. Chapitre quatre explore les différentes définitions de terme enthousiasme dans les écrits de Shelley, particulièrement Valperga et The Last Man. Je discute l’opinion de Shelley sur Madame de Staël comme suggéré dans Lives. J’analyse les caractères qui ressemblent à Corinne dans les écrits de Shelley. De plus, je considère les sens multiples du mot enthousiasme en relation avec la Guerre civil d’Angleterre et la Révolution française. Je présente comment le terme enthousiasme était lié au cours du dix-septième siècle avec des discours médicales concernant la mélancolie et comment ceci est reflété dans les caractères de Shelley. / The Aesthetics of Madame de Staël and Mary Shelley discusses the art of improvisation and the concept of enthusiasm in the writings of these two authors. In this project, I explore Madame de Staël’s aesthetics of improvisation and enthusiasm as represented in Corinne by drawing from her other novel Delphine, her play Sapho, and her short stories as well as her philosophical texts such as De l’Allemagne, De l’influence des passions, and De la littérature. I argue that Madame de Staël embraces through Corinne an anti-utilitarian aesthetic. I maintain that she represents a cosmopolitanism that values indigenous culture as opposed to Napoleon’s Imperialism. Furthermore, I examine how Corinne’s improvisations derive from an enthusiasm that can be associated to Plato’s elucidation of the term in Phaedrus and in Ion. This is evident by Madame de Staël’s own definition of enthusiasm as presented in the closing chapters of her De l’Allemagne. I interpret Corinne’s illness that is manifested in the loss of her genius as having psychosomatic origins and as being a slow suicide that is an expression of anger against patriarchy. The character of Corinne allows Madame de Staël to explore the conflict that women artists faced between having an artistic career and adhering to the domestic ideology. Chapter two focuses on the interest that Shelley takes in the art of improvisation as is manifested in her letters about the improvisator Tommaso Sgricci. Despite her fascination with extempore poetry, she regrets that this art form is evanescent. Moreover, I examine her enthusiastic response to another artist, Nicolò Paganini. Her fascination with this virtuoso violinist is linked to discourses about the unnatural talent of improvisatores. I argue there is a continuum of improvisation from the ballad form of the common people to the high-cultured improvisatore. I hold that the Shelleys were collaborating in defining the theory of inspiration through their interest in the art of improvisation. Chapter three considers the link between cosmology and aesthetics of inspiration through the function of music, especially Joseph Haydn’s The Creation, in Shelley’s The Last Man. I examine the representation of the sublimity of the Alps in the narrative through discourses that associate the Alps with the primordial forces of creation. The roles of Necessity, Prophecy, and Time can be understood in the novel by taking into account the notion of the music of the spheres. Chapter four explores the different meanings of the word enthusiasm in Shelley’s writings, primarily in Valperga and The Last Man. I discuss Shelley’s views on Madame de Staël as presented in Lives. I analyze Corinne-inspired characters in Shelley’s texts. In addition, I consider the meaning of enthusiasm in Shelley’s writings in relation to the English Civil War and the French Revolution. I present how enthusiasm was linked in the seventeenth-century to medical discourses about melancholia and how this is reflected in Shelley’s characters.