The need to protect diverse biological resources from ongoing development pressures is one of today's most pressing environmental challenges. In response, "ecosystem services" has emerged as a conservation framework that links human economies and natural systems through the benefits that people receive from nature. In this dissertation, I investigate the science-policy interface of ecosystem services in order to understand the use of ecosystem service decision support tools and evaluate the pathways through which ecosystem services knowledge impacts decisions. In the first paper, I track an ecosystem service valuation project in California to evaluate how the project changes the social capacity to make conservation-oriented decisions and how decision-makers intend to use ecosystem services knowledge. In a second project, I analyze a global sample of cases and identify factors that can explain the impact of ecosystem services knowledge on decisions. I find that the perceived legitimacy of knowledge (whether it is unbiased and representative of many diverse viewpoints) is an important determinant of whether the knowledge impacts policy processes and decisions. For the third project, I focus on the global use of spatial ecosystem service models. I analyze country-level factors that are associated with use and the effect of practitioner trainings on the uptake of these decision support tools. Taken together, this research critically evaluates how ecosystem service interventions perform. The results can inform the design of boundary organizations that effectively link conservation science with policy action, and guide strategic efforts to protect, restore, and enhance ecosystem services.

M. Tech. (Fine Art, Department of Visual Arts and Design, Faculty of Human Sciences), Vaal University of Technology| / My Masters of Fine Arts degree consists of two components: the dissertation and practical works in the form of sculptures displayed as an exhibition. This body of work explores myth, belief and ritual practices relating to birth, life and death of twins in Xhosa culture. The purpose of the dissertation is to enrich and reflect on both the understanding of Xhosa ritual practices and that of my own work. The study will hopefully add significantly to the body of knowledge about Xhosa Indigenous Knowledge Systems as relating to twins. UNESCO emphasizes that Indigenous Knowledge Systems are part of immaterial cultural heritage such as languages, music and dance, festivities, rituals and traditional craftsmanship, and this cultural heritage is important for the identity of a society (Kaya & Masoga 2008:2). The choice of employing autoethnography in this qualitative study is derived from lived experience. Born as a twin in a rural Xhosa community, I experienced some unusual practices during my upbringing and thus a qualitative research method is used, involving auto-ethnography. This methodological approach aims at exploration of personal experience as a focus of investigation. The study also looks briefly at Yoruba twins as a means of finding similarities and commonalties with those of Xhosa culture. / National Arts Council

The purpose of this thesis is to report on issues concerning the continuous spread of HIV/AIDS in Mozambique in spite of the HIV/AIDS prevention interventions that are in place. This research was conducted in Dondo and Maringue districts, both situated in the Sofala Province. Sofala Province had higher prevalence that was 25 percent higher than the national average of 16.2 percent. An ethnographic research methodology was used in order to understand the reasons behind the continuous escalation of HIV/AIDS. It was significant for one to get to know the people that live in Dondo and Maringue, especially their daily lives, including their cultural practices as the driving force in people’s behaviour and the manner in which people make sense of their daily lives. It was important to understand their cultural practices, because of their relevance to the issue of HIV/AIDS in terms of the manner in which cultural practices influence people in decision-making about their social life, which escalate to the issue of health practices. Although the concept of HIV/AIDS is acknowledged in Dondo and Maringue, xirombo and phiringaniso were continuously used as local concepts in health issues and practiced as indigenous knowledge together with kupitakufa, kupitamabzwade, and kupitamoto rituals, and these practices were extended in dealing with HIV/AIDS. The acceptance of the Western medical interpretation of HIV/AIDS was low among the people in Dondo and Maringue. This reality is due to the preservation of local cultural knowledge in dealing with diseases. As a result, local medical concept and rituals becomes a challenge to the Western medical interpretation of HIV/AIDS and its health prevention and intervention strategies. In the context of Western medical interpretation of diseases the above local cultural practices are used as '" " resistance against the western medical interpretations HIV/AIDS concepts. These cultural practices have preferences among local people in dealing with, and promoting HIV/AIDS health prevention interventions when compared with the public biomedical HIV/AIDS concept and the general biomedical practices. In conclusion this thesis suggests that there is a need for integration of these cultural practices within the Western medical interpretation, prevention and intervention strategies in dealing with the HIV/AIDS pandemic and its concerns at a local level.

This thesis advances the understanding of the application of artificial neural networks ensemble to clinical data by addressing the following fundamental question: What is the potentiality of an ensemble of neural networks models as a filter and classifier in a complex clinical situation? A novel neural networks ensemble classification model called Rules and Information Driven by Consistency in Artificial Neural Networks Ensemble (RIDCANNE) is developed for the purpose of prediction of medical outcomes or events, such as kidney transplants. The proposed classification model is based on combination of initial data preparations, preliminary classification by ensembles of Neural Networks, and generation of new training data based on criteria of highly accuracy and model agreement. Furthermore, it can also generate decision tree classification models to provide classification of data and the prediction results. The case studies described in this thesis are from a kidney transplant database and two well-known collections of benchmark data known as the Pima Indian Diabetes and Wisconsin Cancer datasets. An implication of this study is that further attention needs to be given to both data collection and preparation stages. This study revealed that even neural network ensemble models that are known for their strong generalization ability might not be able to provide a high level of accuracy for complex, noisy and incomplete clinical data. However, by using a selective subset of data points, it is possible to improve the overall accuracy. In summary, the research conducted for this thesis advances the current clinical data preparation and classification techniques in which the task is to extract patterns that contain higher information content from a sea of noisy and incomplete clinical data, and build accurate and transparent classifiers. The RIDC-ANNE approach improves an analyst�s ability to better understand the data. Furthermore, it shows great promise for use in clinical decision making systems. It can provide us with a valuable data mining tool with great research and commercial potential.

Dans cette thèse, nous avons proposé un modèle multi-échelle pour l'animation de rivière. Nous avons présenté un nouveau modèle pour chaque échelle. A l'échelle macro, nous avons proposé une méthode procédurale permettant de générer une rivière réaliste à la volée. A l'échelle méso nous avons amélioré un modèle phénoménologique basé sur une représentation vectorielle des ondes de choc près des obstacles, et proposé une methode pour la reconstruction adaptative de la surface de l'eau. A l'échelle micro, nous avons présenté une méthode adaptative pour texturer des surfaces de grande étendue avec des performances indépendantes de la scène. Nous avons également propos é une méthode d'advection de texture. Ces deux modèles reposent sur notre schéma d'échantillonnage adaptatif. En combinant ces modèles, nous avons pu animer des rivières de taille mondiale en temps réel, tout en étant contr?olable. Les performances de notre système sont indépendantes de la scène. La vitesse procédurale et l'échantillonage en espace écran permettent à notre système de fonctionner sur des domaines illimités. Les utilisateurs peuvent observer la rivière de très près ou de très loin à tout moment. Des vagues très détaillées peuvent être affichées. Les différents parties des rivières sont continues dans l'espace et dans le temps, même lors de l'exploration ou de l'édition de la rivière par un utilisateur. Cela signifie que l'utilisateur peut éditer les lits des rivières ou ajouter des îles à la volée sans interrompre l'animation. La vitesse de la rivière change dès que l'utilisateur en édite les caractéristiques, et l'utilisateur peut auss modifier son apparence avec des textures.

L'angiographie par rayons X est la modalité d'imagerie médicale la plus utilisée pour l'exploration des pathologies des vaisseaux coronariens. La routine clinique actuelle repose sur l'utilisation brute des images angiographiques. Pourtant, ces images présentent des défauts tels que le raccourcissement des longueurs, l'effet de grandissement ou la présence de superpositions. Ces faiblesses peuvent fausser le diagnostic et le choix thérapeutique. Nous proposons d'exploiter un nouveau mode d'acquisition angiographique, le mode rotationnel, pour produire des modélisations tridimensionnelles et dynamiques de l'arbre coronaire. Ces modélisations permettraient de s'affranchir des défauts intrinsèques aux images. Notre travail se compose de trois étapes. Dans un premier temps, une reconstruction 3D multi-oculaire donne un modèle statique des lignes centrales des artères coronaires, prenant en compte le mouvement respiratoire. Par la suite, un mouvement 4D des artères coronaires est determiné sur l'ensemble du cycle cardiaque. Enfin, la connaissance des mouvements respiratoire et cardiaque permet de réaliser la reconstruction tomographique des artères coronaires. Nous avons testé notre approche sur une base de 22 patients et avons proposé de nouveaux outils et applications cliniques à partir de ces modélisations tridimensionnelles et dynamiques. Ces outils diagnostiques ont été prototypés et feront l'objet d'une validation clinique.

abstract: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common abnormal heart rhythm, affecting nearly 2% of the world’s population at a cost of $26 Billion in the United States annually, and incalculable costs worldwide. AF causes no symptoms for some people. However, others with AF experience uncomfortable symptoms including palpitations, breathlessness, dizziness, and fatigue. AF can severely diminish quality of life for both AF sufferers and their loved ones. Beyond uncomfortable symptoms, AF is also linked to congestive heart failure and stroke, both of which can cause premature death. Medications often fail to control AF, leading patients and healthcare providers to seek other cures, including catheter ablation. To date, catheter ablation has yielded uneven results, but garners much attention in research and innovation in pursuit of a cure for AF. This dissertation examines the historical development and contemporary practices of AF ablation to identify opportunities to improve the innovation system for the disease. First, I trace the history of AF and AF ablation knowledge from the 2nd century B.C.E. through the present. This historical look identifies patterns of knowledge co-development between science, technology, and technique, as well as publication patterns impacting knowledge dissemination. Second, I examine the current practices of AF ablation knowledge translation from the perspective of clinical practitioners to characterize the demand-side of knowledge translation in real-world practice. Demand-side knowledge translation occurs in nested patterns, and requires data, experience, and trust in order to incorporate knowledge into a practice paradigm. Third, I use social network mapping and analysis to represent the full AF ablation knowledge-practice system and identify opportunities to modify research and innovation practice in AF ablation based on i measures of centrality and power. Finally, I outline six linked recommendations using raw data capture during ablation procedures and open big data analytics, coupled with multi-stakeholder social networking approaches, to maximize innovation potential in AF ablation research and practice. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Human and Social Dimensions of Science and Technology 2016

Orientador: Clélia Cândida Abreu Spinardi Jubran / Banca: Anna Christina Bentes / Banca: Maria Izabel de Oliveira Massoni / Resumo: A presente dissertação filia-se à Lingüística Textual, mais precisamente a uma abordagem sociocognitiva-interacionista, elegendo para objeto de estudo o texto, entendido como lugar de interação. Justificamos nosso recorte teórico pela opção de analisarmos, de maneira comparativa, as condições de produção e os textos delas resultantes, conjugando, portanto, o processo e seu produto. Nosso objetivo, então, é encontrar pistas nas produções escolares que remetam às orientações dadas em sala de aula, isto é, buscamos nos textos marcas que sinalizem as informações fornecidas em aulas de redação. Para tanto, observamos aulas em duas escolas particulares de São José do Rio Preto, ambas de terceiro ano do Ensino Médio, e relatamos os encaminhamentos dados para a produção textual. Essa descrição se baseou nos quatro sistemas cognitivos necessários para a produção textual - lingüístico, interacional, enciclopédico e sobre modelos textuais globais - descritos pela corrente sociocognitivista da Lingüística Textual, aos quais nós acrescentamos um outro saber - o conhecimento sobre organização tópica, pautado pelas propriedades da centração e da organicidade. Os textos coletados foram analisados a partir da categoria de tópico discursivo, com o intuito de observarmos a (des)organização tópica existente nas redação escolares. Quanto aos textos reescritos, além das aulas de orientação, levamos em conta as correções efetuadas pelos professores nos textos originais, a fim de verificar se esses novos direcionamentos contribuíam para a obtenção de textos organizados topicamente. Como resultado, percebemos que, apesar de algumas diferenças quanto ao modo de as aulas serem dadas nas duas salas informantes, a maioria dos textos não se apresentou dotado de organização tópica, fato que pôde ser explicitado pela natureza das orientações dadas em sala de aula. / Abstract: The current dissertation joins to the Textual Linguistics with a sociocognitive - interacting approach, choosing as study goal the text, seen as the interaction place. The theoretical clipping is justified by the comparative analysis of the production conditions and the resulting texts, therefore joining the process and the product. The goal is to find clues in the school productions that rely on the classroom orientation, that is, we seek for signs from the composition classes. So that we observed classes in two private school groups in Sao Jose do Rio Preto, both in the third year of High School, and enrolled the directions given to textual production - linguistics, interactive, encyclopedic and about the global textual models - as described by the sociocognitivist running of Textual Linguistics, to which we added another knowledge - about topical organization, regulated by the properties of "centration" and "organicity". The collected texts were analysed in the category of discursive topic, with the intention of observing the topical (dis)organization in the school compositions. As for the rewritten texts, besides the orientation classes, the corrections made by the teachers into the original texts were taken into account, in order to verify if the new orientations contributed in obtaining texts with topical organization. As a result, it was noticed that, in spite of some differences in the way the classes were given in the two observed groups, most of the texts weren't endowed with topical organization and this result could be explained by the nature of orientation that were given in the classes. / Mestre

An extensive study on the influences of music education on the forming of musical identities was undertaken. Information obtained from thorough literature review, questionnaires and interviews has been analysed, collated and set out in the dissertation. The review of literature has revealed that there remain few unanswered questions regarding the defining of both music education and musical identities. However, few studies have examined the influences music education has on the formation of identity, particularly concerning the making of music career-choices. The effects of a variety of musical and non-musical developments and/or adaptations may influence the formation of musical identities, since the individual has to develop and adapt alongside these changes. This study was conducted in a multi-cultural South African society, and investigated the influences music education has on the forming of musical identities. The primary purpose of the study was to develop an understanding and awareness amongst professional South African musicians, in practice at the time of the study, regarding the value that music education has on the forming of musical identities. The aim in attaining the said purpose was, firstly, to examine the differences between formal and informal music education, the latter being very prominent in non-Western countries, including South Africa. In this regard musical arts education was also attended to. Secondly, musical identities were delineated so as to view their forming due to music educational influences. Finally, the study examined how prior exposure to different music educational aspects influences professional South African musicians’ career-choices. There were two groups of respondents in the study: <ol> <li>A group of music experts from different music spheres participating in semi-structured interviews, each lasting approximately 45 minutes, that were recorded and then transcribed; and</li> <li>A matched group of music experts asked to complete a questionnaire based on interview questions.</li> </ol> Diverse participants included academics, choir conductors, educators, ethnologists, tertiary music students, performers, psychologists, therapists, and representatives from the private sector. The results indicated that music education, continuously developing and transforming, contributes to one’s musical identities and is crucial to the development of identities, with particular consideration of one’s choice of music career. / Dissertation (MMus)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Music / unrestricted

Indigenous research methodologies encourage indigenous scholars and allies to re-make research. Deliberately positioning academic inquiry as part of a research design, research can sustain and renew a community’s ability to engage their political priorities while fostering a transition back to community-based knowledge production. In this dissertation, I report on two research projects I was involved in that were led by Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations. Both projects examine Tla-o-qui-aht knowledge systems and values in relation to other lifeforms like salmon. I document how the Tla-o-qui-aht community and I, as a researcher, navigated a series of existing institutional and community-based ethical processes together and were able to create new ones to guide our research as well as research in the future. These processes included: creating a Tla-o-qui-aht Research Liaison position, establishing a Traditional Resource Committee for the review of all research involving Tla-o-qui-aht, and relocating the researcher to the community. The practices emerging from these processes reoriented Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations’ research accountabilities toward their ḥaw̓iiḥ (hereditary chiefs) and ḥatkm̓iiḥ (high-ranking women) as part of their regeneration of their relationships with the ḥaḥuułi (chiefly territories). This praxis of indigenous research in Tla-o-qui-aht ḥaḥuułi, that is, ensuring that practice is informed by community knowledge, demonstrates the importance of placing research leadership in the community. By situating leadership and researcher in community the ontologies of Tla-o-qui-aht knowledge systems emerged as a way to describe dissonance, recentre lived values and imagine possible futures of abundance. The use of filming as research method, centring Ciiqciqasa (speaking Nuučaan̓ułʔath), digitization of community records, and analysis of existing community records of ḥaaḥuupa (teaching, storytelling) were directed by Tla-o-qui-aht and reflect how academic research can serve community renewal. / Graduate / 2023-05-31