Thesis (M.Sc (Radiography))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2016. / Multiple sclerosis (MS) affects the central nervous system (CNS) and is characterized by multiple demyelinating lesions. It is in this context that a need arises for reliable biomarkers such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), which could lead to the early diagnosis and therapeutic intervention when maximum potential impact is possible. This study examines the impact of MRI as a marker and the sequences that give the best images to aid in evaluation of disease progression (which can indirectly be seen as disability) and the early diagnosis of MS which will, in turn, lead to more effective management of the disease. METHOD: Sixteen subjects underwent a neurological examination, the Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS), blood tests for iron parameters and a 3Tesla Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scan. In a study of MS, 11 had MRI data that could be analysed by using tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS). Subjects were divided according to the EDSS score (8 of the subjects had an EDSS score of ≤ 3 while 3 subjects had scores of ≥ 6). Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), the fused Proton Density and Fluid Attenuation Recovery (FLAIR) was utilised to compute the lesion numbers and standard laboratory procedures were used to measure other biochemical markers (serum iron, % transferrin saturation, ferritin, haemoglobin) in subjects with disability and simultaneously assess the disease process. RESULTS: The FA of white matter tracts (WMTs) as a parameter of myelin integrity was lower in subjects with MS only in those who had high EDSS scores. An association between FA and iron parameters, especially percentage transferrin saturation (% Tf) sat were observed, which suggests that iron availability to the WM may be a requirement for optimal myelin functionality. CONCLUSION: The FA of WMTs as a parameter of myelin integrity was lower only in those MS subjects who had high EDSS scores. Subjects who had EDSS scores < 3 (i.e. who had a “benign” disease outcome) had FA values similar to control values and this finding was not related to their age or disease duration. The association found between FA and iron parameters, especially % Tf sat, suggests that iron availability to the WM may be a requirement for optimal myelin functionality. Results also suggest that serum iron concentration, ferritin and % Tf sat had an effect on myelination. The lack of association between FA and Hb suggests that the iron in this protein is not available for WM function.

Virginia Woolf in Mrs Dalloway, through Clarissa Dalloway’s and other parallel stories, presents us with the situation of Septimus Warren Smith, a war hero who suffers shell-shock and that due to his apparent madness is victim of constant threats from two physicians who want to put him away because of his mental crises. He, in an attempt to preserve his soul from the terrible embrace of human nature, decides to kill himself before he is arrested. Taking into account this information, the topic of this thesis will be the treatment of madness in Mrs Dalloway, understanding the figure of the mad person as a literary archetype which is repeated with some consistency in English Literature, from classical to contemporary texts. The main focus will be the development of the figure of Septimus as a visionary poet, a modernist figure analogous to William Blake who, with his visionary poetic/pictorial work, drew the paths to the following romantic company. A comparison will be drawn between the two poets taking into account the evolution of the visionary poet from its pre-romantic sphere to the modernist shadow of a mad person, showing that madness suffers transformations from the ancient Greece to modernist times. One of the sub-topics will be the conception of nature in contrast to human nature, and how they seem to be components of a dichotomy that cannot be dissolved. My intention is to work on madness as a literary archetype, along with an examination of the mad person within the context of a modernist novel where it is manifest in the figure of the visionary poet. I will try to see how this has changed from the Platonic perspective of divine madness to the segregation and punishment of the Classic Epoch, and finally to our modern(ist) sensibility. Tentatively, the social apprehension towards the mad person would affect its characterisation in Mrs Dalloway, in which a post-war fragmented society is presented.

Neste trabalho, descrevemos o desenvolvimento do equipamento e o software necessários à implementação da técnica de obtenção de imagens por RMN. Nossos principais objetivos foram a construção de um sistema de controle e aquisição de dados que permitisse operar um espectrômetro de Fourier de RMN pulsada como um tomógrafo de RMN; por outro lado, visamos a construção de um espectrômetro que tivesse seus parâmetros facilmente reconfiguráveis pelo sistema de controle. O resultado foi um sofisticado equipamento que permite, além do proposto, trabalhar com técnicas de espectroscopia de alta resolução e espectroscopia em sólidos. Uma grande ênfase foi dada ao entendimento das técnicas De reconstrução de imagens, desde as convencionais até aquelas que constituem atualmente a fronteira de pesquisa nessa área. Os resultados obtidos com o sistema descrito são considerados bons, comparáveis aos das unidades construídas por empresas que operam comercialmente nessa área, em cooperação com centros localizados em universidades no exterior, pouco devendo a equipamentos similares (protótipos) desenvolvidos naqueles centros. / We describe in this work the development of hardware and software necessary to implement the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) techniques. Our major subjects were the construction of an acquisition and control system which allowed the operation of a pulsed Fourier NMR spectrometer as a NMR Tomograph; further we oriented the developing of a NMR spectrometer whose parameters could be easily reconfigured by the controlling system. As a result we obtained a sophisticated equipment which allows, more than the proposed, working with high resolution spectroscopic techniques and spectroscopy in solids. Since the basic techniques employed in NMR and CT Tomographs are well known, a great emphasis was also given on the understanding of the image reconstruction techniques that constitutes today the frontier of research in this area. The results obtained with the system described here are considered good, comparable to the results from commercial units developed in cooperation with imaging groups located in universities abroad.

Die MRT ist eine aufstrebende Methode der Fettforschung für die Fettquantifizierung in verschiedenen Körperregionen. Das Ziel dieser Studie war es, die Genauigkeit der MR-Bildgebung von Fett und Wasser, sowie der MR-Spektroskopie für die Fettquantifizierung von Fettphantomen bei 1,5 Tesla zu untersuchen. Die Fettphantome bestanden aus Emulsionen von Öl und Wasser, die über den gesamten Fettbereich von 0-100% hergestellt wurden. Der relative Fettgehalt wurde anschließend mittels 2-Punkt-Dixon (MR-Bildgebung), Multi-Echo-Dixon (MR-Bildgebung), sowie single-voxel proton (MR Spektroskopie - MRS) mit den Lokalisierungstechniken PRESS und STEAM gemessen. Für die statistische Evaluierung wurden die Ergebnisse mittels linearer Regression und Bland-Altman-Analyse ausgewertet. Die Übereinstimmung der MR-basierten Messungen des Fettgehaltes mit den nominellen Fettwerten der Phantome war im Allgemeinen gut. Die Übereinstimmung der 2-Punkt-Dixon war nur moderat mit R² = 0,75 - vor allem für den Fettgehalt zwischen 30% und 70%. Für Mulit-Echo-Dixon, STEAM und PRESS MRS war die Übereinstimmung groß mit einem gerundeten R² = 0,98 für alle drei Methoden. Zusammenfassend komplementiert diese Arbeit die Literatur der MR-basierten Fettquantifizierung bei 1,5 T und zeigt, dass die Multi-Echo-Dixon und MR-Spektroskopie ähnlich genaue Ergebnisse über den gesamten Fettgehalt haben.

Margaret Oliphant's fiction has generated some interest in recent years, but her prose essays have been ignored. Critics contend her essays are unimportant and dismiss Oliphant as a hack writer who had little sympathy with her sex. These charges are untrue, however, because many influences complicated Oliphant's writings on the Woman Question. She suffered recurring financial difficulties and gender discrimination, she lacked formal education, and most of her work was published by Blackwood's, a conservative, male-oriented periodical edited by a close personal friend. Readers who are aware of these influences find Oliphant's earliest three essays about the Woman Question especially provocative because in them Oliphant explored the dichotomy between the perceived and the real lives of women. Oliphant refined her opinions each time she wrote on the Woman Question, and a more coherent, more clearly feminist, perspective emerges in each succeeding article. In "The Laws Concerning Women," despite Oliphant's apparent position, pre-feminist markers suggest that she is tentative about feminist ideas rather than negative towards them. "The Condition of Women" offers even more prefeminist markers, Oliphant's ostensible support of the patriarchal status quo notwithstanding. In "The Great Unrepresented," an article cited by some as proof that Oliphant was against women's suffrage, she argues not against enfranchising women, but against the method proposed for securing the vote. In this article, many pre-feminist markers have become decidedly feminist. Scholars may have overlooked Oliphant's feminism because her rhetorical strategies are more complicated than those of most other Victorian critics and invite her audience to read between the lines. Although her writing sometimes lacks unity and focus, and her prose is often turgid, convoluted, and digressive, she creates elaborate inverse arguments with claims supporting patriarchy but evidence that supports feminism. A rich feminist subtext lies beneath the surface text of Oliphant's essays, demonstrating that her perspective on the Woman Question is far more complex than it initially appears.

This project examines the implications of mythologizing women writers, specifically Woolf and Austen, and transforming them into their own famous characters. Using various writings that theorize women's voices, sense of agency, and political autonomy in relationship with the public/private dichotomy, this project argues that women writers are often appropriated and fictionalized in this way because of a patriarchal cultural understanding that women are associated with the private, personal, and domestic spheres. More importantly, it argues that this increasingly frequent treatment aligns with and forwards a neoliberal political and cultural agenda. The politics of the last twenty or thirty years, in short, are shaping interpretations and adaptations of major works of the English canon, specifically Mrs. Dalloway and Pride and Prejudice. Particular examples of such adaptations include The Hours, Vanessa and Her Sister, Becoming Jane, and Longbourn. This project ultimately analyzes these and a select number of other texts in order to show that these contemporary treatments of two of the most famous female writers from the English canon reveal quite a bit about current attitudes within the United States about gender (in)equality, care work/dependency, and sexuality. / Master of Arts

SCA Ortvikens energiavdelning har fem stycken fastbränslepannor som försörjer interna förbrukare med processånga. Bränslet är i huvudsak bark, biologiskt slam och pelletspulver. SCA är ålagda att registrera utsläpp till luft och redovisa detta enligt de i verksamhetstillståndet villkorsbelagda utsläppen samt för kväveoxid-deklaration och för handel om utsläppsrätter för CO2. Förutom verksamhetstillståndet innefattas SCA Ortviken dessutom av förordningen 2013:252 Stora förbränningsanläggningar. För att redovisa detta används miljöredovisningssystemet ”MRS” från Entric AB. Drift-och underhåll saknar i nulägen en övergripande bild över MRS vilket skulle underlätta deras arbete för att säkerställa funktion på ingående signaler och därmed minska risken för mätbortfall vilket kan förebygga höga utsläpp under produktionen i framtiden. I detta arbete har, genom flödesscheman för de mest relevanta signaler och mätvärden vad gäller utsläpp som är kopplade till MRS, kunna underlätta för processoperatörer och underhållsorganisationen att säkerställa mätfunktionen. Arbetet har dessutom, genom analys av historiska data över driften, lett till förslag på åtgärder för att minska bildandet av olika utsläpp. Arbetet har visat att det finns många enkla åtgärder som kan göras för att minska utsläppen på redan befintligt installerad teknik på pannorna, men även gett förslag på annat teknik, och hur denna kan appliceras. Arbetet har också visat på brister i den nuvarande dokumentation-och signalhanteringen i avseende att göra mätvärden synliga i processystem andra än MRS.

Méthodologie de Conception de Système Multi-robots : de la Simulation à la Démonstration. Les systèmes multi-robots sont des systèmes complexes mais prometteurs dans de nombreux domaines, les nombreux travaux académiques dans ce domaine attestent de l'importance qu'ils auront dans le futur. Cependant, si ces promesses sont réelles, elles ne sont pas encore réalisées comme en témoigne le faible nombre de systèmes multi-robots utilisés dans l'industrie. Pourtant des solutions existent afin de permettre aux industriels et académiques de travailler ensemble à cette problématique. Nous proposons un état de l'art et les défis associés à la conception des systèmes multi-robots d'un point de vue académique et industriel. Nous présentons ensuite trois contributions pour la conception de ces systèmes : une réalisation d'un essaim hétérogène en tant que cas d'étude pratique afin de mettre en évidence les obstacles de conception. La modification d'un autopilote et d'un simulateur pour les rendre compatibles aux développements des systèmes multi-robots. La démonstration d'un outil d'évaluation sur la base des deux contributions précédentes. Enfin, nous concluons sur la portée de ces travaux et des perspectives à venir sur la base de l'open source / Multi-robot System Design Methodology : from Simulation to Demonstration Multi-robot systems are complex but promising systems in many fields, the number of academic works in this field underlines the importance they will have in the future. However, while these promises are real, they have not yet been realized, as evidenced by the small number of multi-robot systems used in the industry. However, solutions exist to enable industrialists and academics to work together on this issue. We propose a state of the art and challenges associated with the design of multi-robot systems from an academic and industrial point of view. We then present three contributions for the design of these systems: a realization of a heterogeneous swarm as a practical case study in order to highlight the design obstacles. The modification of an autopilot and a simulator to make them compatible with the development of multi-robot systems. Demonstration of an evaluation tool based on the two previous contributions. Finally, we conclude on the scope of this work and future perspectives based on open source.

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The purpose of this thesis is to track Virginia Woolf's enactment of conscious experience over the course of her 3 most consciousness forward novels, To the Lighthouse (1927), The Waves (1931), and Mrs. Dalloway (1925). This thesis aims to examine Woolf's ideas and theories about individual consciousness, collective consciousness, and how gendered consciousness plays a role in both. Set against the consciousness philosophy of Woolf's time, this thesis sets Woolf's ideas apart from the abstractions of philosophy and attempts to trace Woolf's enactment of consciousness throughout three of her most famous novels. In researching this project, I studied the consciousness scholarship that was circulating within scholarly circles during Virginia Woolf's time. I also read about what Virginia Woolf herself had to say about philosophy and its usefulness. Finally, I researched what scholars of Virginia Woolf had to say about her work and the philosophy of consciousness. By using all these avenues for my research, I was able to paint a portrait of Virginia Woolf's involvement with philosophy, her ideas about conscious experience, and how those ideas took shape in her novels. In her novels, Virginia Woolf transcends academic philosophy by creating a way to understand and visualize the phenomenology of consciousness that is unique and entirely her own. In the first chapter of this thesis, I explore Woolf's depiction of gendered consciousness in her novel To the Lighthouse. In this chapter, I argue that Woolf suggests a difference between the way men and women experience the world. She explores the implications of those experiences for the collective consciousness, and the delicate line that balances gendered individual consciousness with the collective experience. In the second chapter, I look at Woolf's theory of group consciousness in The Waves, which explores what it means to be part of a collective experience while also balancing being an individual with one's own inner experience. In this chapter, I argue that Woolf formulates a coming-of-age narrative to enact the development of both the individual and collective consciousnesses. She also splits the coming-of-age narratives into two different groups, based on gender. I argue that Woolf does this to highlight the different ways in which men and women experience, how that experience develops from adolescence to adulthood, and the balance that must be maintained to reach Woolf's idea of enlightenment. Finally, in the last chapter, I discuss Woolf's ideas about inner and outer experience in Mrs. Dalloway, including the novel's implicit assertion that there must be stability, or balance, in both inner and outer conscious experience if one is to function within the collective consciousness of society. I argue that Woolf shows this balance, or lack thereof, in the parallel narratives of Clarissa and Septimus. In doing this she once again asserts that there is a gendered difference in the way men and women experience and shows how the balance of inner and outer experience functions between both men and women. By analyzing these three texts, I hope to show both Woolf's understanding of conscious experience and the ways in which she enacts this understanding in her three most consciousness-forward novels. / Master of Arts / What is consciousness? What does it mean to have an experience? For years scholars have attempted to answer these questions. Consciousness, as an area of study, raises a few questions. These questions include: What does it mean to have an experience? What is it like, both cognitively and physically, to perceive what's happening around you, and why does it matter in the first place? In the early 20th century, consciousness, and the study of it were at the center of scholarly attention. Influential philosophers such as William James and G.E Moore were just beginning to formulate their theories about conscious experience and to bring them into public view. In this thesis I argue that Virginia Woolf provided her own answer to these questions about consciousness during her career. By reading Woolf against consciousness scholarship, I aim to discuss the ways in which Woolf creates a new idea or philosophy of consciousness, one that considers gender, society, and the individual, and depicts how all these things coalesce into what we understand as "experience." Woolf's thoughts and philosophies were no doubt influenced by those who came before her, but she also created a concept or way of enacting consciousness in her novels that was uniquely her own. In the first chapter of this thesis, I explore gendered and collective consciousness in To the Lighthouse (1927) and the balance that must be maintained within both. In the second chapter, I explore collective or group consciousness in The Waves (1931) and explore how Woolf enacts a coming of age of both collective conscious identity and individual conscious identity, Finally, in the last chapter, I explore Woolf's ideas about inner and outer conscious experience in Mrs. Dalloway (1925), and how one must balance these experiences if they are to function in the collective consciousness of society.