This dissertation investigates architecture's potential role in improving the experience of the daily commute into and out of the city. It is proposed that an architectural intervention that takes into account the 'embodied' experience of the commuter as key informant could assist in such an improvement. Various structural and infrastructural upgrades are being planned for the east-west Metrorail link between Pretoria Station and Mamelodi by the Tshwane Municipal Government and the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA). This link is selected to act as setting for the enquiry, with Mamelodi Gardens Metrorail Station as site for architectural intervention. A conflict is identified between requirements of the public transport system to function optimally and efficiently and the experiential and everyday needs of the commuter who encounters it. The dissertation aims to relieve this apparent opposition through a design process of mediation. Due partially to its functionally driven nature, public transport planning often leads to an environment of extremes which places the commuting experience under tension. Architecture's potential role in alleviating these extremes through impact or through the mediation of other environmental impacts is explored. Phenomenological philosophy, as a study based in the ontological enquiry of conscious experience, is the theoretical stimulus to the experiential component of the study. This theoretical base is partnered with investigative and interpretive study in order to ascertain the various ways in which architecture could potentially impact on the embodied experience of the commuter. / Dissertation MArch(Prof)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Architecture / MArch(Prof) / Unrestricted

It is possible to quantify and understand how an exposure affects an outcome through an intermediate variable via causal mediation analysis. In many cases in practice, however, the effect of the exposure may vary for different subgroups of the population. Combining these two ideas results in the related concepts of moderated mediation and mediated moderation. Addressing questions of why and how an exposure gives rise to an outcome differently for different subsets of the population provides deeper understandings of the effect heterogeneity phenomenon and permits insights that may be both clinically and practically meaningful about what works for whom and through which intermediate(s).This dissertation explores how to understand and explain these causal mechanisms by focusing on explaining effect heterogeneity via causal mediation analysis. Formal definitions and analytical formulas for direct and indirect effect heterogeneity measures are described from a counterfactual perspective. Various types of direct and indirect effect heterogeneity from two-way and three-way decompositions, such as natural direct and indirect effect heterogeneity and pure direct and indirect effect heterogeneity, are introduced and defined. However, just simply decomposing the total effect heterogeneity into direct and indirect effect heterogeneity does not fully account for the complex mechanism of the two-way and three-way interactions happening in the effect heterogeneity phenomenon. Arising from this, in the context of a regression-based approach, this dissertation shows how direct and indirect effect heterogeneity can be further decomposed to account for possible multi-way interactions between exposure, mediator, and modifier. This is an essential way to account for different portions of interactions along causal pathways of effect heterogeneity. It provides more causal implications about the question for whom and in what context that the effect happens. Identification assumptions that are sufficient for the estimations of effect heterogeneity decompositions are also considered. Analytical expressions for effect heterogeneity decompositions on additive and ratio scales are provided. National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) data is used to illustrate the proposed methodologies in application.

2013 marked the fifty years anniversary of the Treason Trials at the Old Synagogue, in Pretoria, South Africa. The trial was a symbolic victory for the Liberation Movement in their fight against an oppressive apartheid regime. Today, with freedom a reality, Liberation Struggle Heritage Sites have surfaced throughout the country with the purpose of commemorating the multitude of events which occurred on the path to liberation. The purpose of this research is to generate a contextual response to the challenge of commemorating and rejuvenating the currently abandoned Old Synagogue. This study investigates the manner in which Liberation Struggle Heritage Sites are being commemorated. The results will assist heritage practitioners to ascertain whether the current trends in the application of heritage conservation and commemoration strategies make meaningful contributions towards local communities. An empirical research method of visiting Liberation Struggle Heritage Sites in Gauteng was conducted as a means of primary data collection. The findings indicate that these sites display weak accessibility traits, and do not engage with their surrounding context in manner which stimulates socio-economic and political growth. The design project aims to initiate programme as a means of commemorating and rejuvenating the Old Synagogue in a contextually appropriate manner. The prerequisites are that the programme should respect, liberate, and celebrate the history and heritage of the Old Synagogue together with the surrounding buildings of heritage value. The design proposal is a Heritage and Mediation Centre geared towards public utility as a place to gather, learn, and retreat within Pretoria’s historic inner city. / Dissertation MArch(Prof)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Architecture / Unrestricted

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Languaging and translanguaging are very important concepts in science classrooms when considering their role as mediational tools for supporting emergent bilingual students' needs. Languaging, including translanguaging, has to do with how people perceive, connect, and understand the activities and utterances around them through verbal and non-verbal communication in any language. This study positions languaging and translanguaging as mediational tools that can be used for supporting the use of science terms and overcoming second language challenges with them. Emergent bilingual students can benefit from the implementation of languaging characteristics that promote classroom discourse spaces where all their repertoire for responding, and learning can occur. Using a sociocultural-ecological theoretical perspective and mediational analysis, this qualitative study provides descriptive evidence identifying important concepts and characteristics that emerged during languaging and translanguaging moments during naturally occurring classroom discourse among students and teacher. Findings demonstrated that when participants changed their participation and identity roles, extended their talk to negotiate meaning, used background knowledge, and applied language play with the scientific terms (i.e., biology vocabulary), it supported the participants in understanding and using those terms during biology lessons. This study discusses how the above language characteristics, as mediational means during languaging and translanguaging discourse, provided important paths for making meaning of scientific terms. Conclusions and implications include how lessons should provide spaces that welcome such characteristics for their meaningful roles in supporting emergent bilingual students.

The objectives of the present dissertation were: (1) determine the relationships between time use in physical vs social leisure activities (PLA - SLA), and cognitive vs emotional leisure activities (CLA - ELA) by older adults age cohort (60-69, 70-79 and 80-plus yrs.); (2) ascertain the role of sex in moderating the relationship between time use in PLA-SLA and CLA-ELA by older adults age cohort; and (3) assess how employment status mediates the relationship between time use in PLA-SLA and CLA-ELA by older adults age cohort with moderation by sex. Secondary data was obtained from the 2019 American Time Use Survey database. Applying a cross-sectional design, data were analyzed using a linear regression model in SPSS version 27 and PROCESS Macro with Hayes Model 1 and 59. We identified the extent of the conditional indirect moderation effect of sex and the indirect employment status mediation effect moderated by sex in the relationship between PLA-SLA and CLA-ELA by older adult age cohorts. An index of moderated mediation was used to test the significance of each effect. The 80-plus yrs. cohort SLA time use was greater than in PLA across cohorts. Sex moderation showed a stronger effect in men by substantially decreasing their engagement time in PLA than in women across cohorts. A non-significant moderated mediation effect in SLA and PLA across age cohorts was observed. Women had the lowest minutes of engagement in both ELA and CLA compared to men. Sex moderation showed a more substantial negative effect on ELA and CLA in men than women. Finally, a significant moderated mediation effect in ELA and CLA across age cohorts was observed, where the mediation effect was stronger for males than females. Our findings indicate age cohort and sex effects on time engagement in both SLA-PLA and ELA-CLA, likely tied to sex roles that amplify at an older age. Sex effects in both ELA and CLA by age cohort appear not immutable in the life span and to equate among the oldest old, suggesting compression of leisure use in later years of life. Work participation is important for ELA and CLA among older adults, but not their SLA and PLA, which is likely explained by the loss of workplace social networks with retirement. Our findings suggest a need for aging well-being policies and initiatives to focus on older adults leisure participation variations within cohorts by sex and work life for optimally targeted interventions.

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