Recently and despite definitional problems, a clearly identifiable group of children has emerged characterized as 'learning disabled' for which programming and hence specialized services are being made available in the Greek state school setting. A more complete description of these children seems necessary in order to find out if and how they differ from other children in personality and whether their academic difficulties have created unique problems for them. The purpose of the present study was, then, to empirically investigate the comparative differences in measures of self-concept (academic and general), locus of control and causal attributions in Special and Regular Class primary school children, in Greece. 424 children enrolled in the third through sixth primary school grades served as subjects. The sample was drawn from state schools located within the three educational districts in the county of Attiki. There were 72 Special Class, and 352 Regular Class children. The Regular Class children were classified as Low Achievers (LA) and Normal Achievers (NA) on the basis of their school grades. Three self report questionnaires were used; the Perceived Competence Scale for children (PCS), and the Self Description Questionnaire (SDQ) were used to measure academic self-concepts and global self-esteem. The two cognitive competence scales from the PCS and the two subject-specific scales from the SDQ were used to assess children's perceptions of their academic abilities. Global self-esteem was measured by a scale from the PCS. The Intellectual Achievement Responsibility Questionnaire (IAR) was used as a measure of locus of control and causal attributions. Teacher ratings of academic performance in Reading and Maths and a Mathematics Test prepared by the researcher were used as achievement measures. The primary independent variable was group inclusion and school achievement. In addition sex and age differences were investigated. Results showed significant and consistent between group differences. Special Class children were found to differ significantly from Normal Achievers on academic self- concepts and global self-esteem. There were also significant differences between Low and Normal achievers on academic self-concepts but not on global self-esteem. Special Class children differed from the other two groups on their locus of control orientation and attributional patterns as well. They attributed both their successes and their failures to external factors, thus fitting the picture of 'learned helplessness'. Low achievers seem to hold the same attributional patterns as Normal Achievers, attributing their successes to their efforts and their failures externally. Suggestions are made that this is likely to be due to societal pressures. Developmental differences were evident in relation to locus of control, with older children showing greater internality. There were also age differences in relation to Perceived Competence Evaluation (PCE), in Special Class children, implying that this group of children develop more negative academic self-concepts as they grow older. Results seem to suggest that academic underachievement accompanied by Special Class placement had a substantial effect on children's academic self-concept, global selfesteem and pattern of attributions.

This study aims to further an understanding of the engagement of children with learning difficulties in curricular activities, by focusing on classroom interactions within mainstream primary schools. In the current educational climate, there is a shift towards increasing the participation of children with special needs, alongside recent governmental guidance supporting the implementation of their right to participate. Consequently, there are a growing number of studies offering recognition of children's participation and their potential contribution. They focus on participation being determined by the teacher whereas this research portrays the view of the child in determining their own participation. The research was an exploratory, in-depth study of seven children within two contrasting school settings. The research process entailed the building of a knowledge base upon which to interpret classroom interactions. It drew upon multiple sources and methods of data collection, to identify emerging factors and categories pertaining to children's engagement. The emerging factors fell into three distinct categories; resource engagement, focus of engagement and engagement in the task agenda. Resource engagement is concerned with children's utilisation of social and physical resources whilst focus of engagement considered the subject of children's attention. Lastly, engagement in the task agenda covered the response of the child to the activities set by the teacher. Relevant theories were used to help further an understanding of the identified categories of children's engagement, and focused in particular on three theoretical tenets pertaining to active, subjective and interactive processes. When these three processes were used constitutively, two conclusive themes emerged. Firstly, that engagement is a demonstration of children's autonomy and self-governance and secondly, that engagement is a process by which children become more knowledgeable about their classroom environment and develop autonomous responses to external requirements.

Magister Artium (Child and Family Studies) - MA(CFS) / In South Africa when learners are in Grade 11 near the end of their school life, the new, but also difficult, transition into adult life now begins. This critical period of development brings forth an array of new challenges: exercising free will, being independent, an increased focus of self, and the decision on what path is to be taken after school. With these challenges comes the act of motivation to acquire the particular goals and aspirations of Grade 11 learners. The question posed was therefore what exactly motivates the South African Grade 11 learner, and why are they motivated to set and aspire to certain goals? The study investigated the basic psychological needs of Grade 11 learners at secondary schools in the Western Cape, along with its relation to the identification of the goals and aspirations of these learners. The study was quantitative in nature. Grade 11 learners currently enrolled for the 2012 academic year, attending secondary schools in the Metro North Western Cape Education District, were invited to participate in the study. This study investigated the influence of basic psychological needs on goals and aspiration pursuits. The sample consisted of 264 Grade 11 learners and data was collected through the administration of a questionnaire compiled through the combination of two scales: The Aspiration Index, and the Basic Measure of Psychological Needs Scale. The data was analyzed through regression analysis. The results of the study suggest that the satisfaction of needs was found to be a significant predictor of both intrinsic as well as extrinsic goal pursuits. The findings further provide an understanding of how basic psychological needs influence the identification of goals and aspirations of Grade 11 Learners. Recommendations are provided for further research in the field of adolescent basic psychological needs and its influences on the identification of goals and aspirations.

The current generation has seen technology penetrate every aspect of our life. However, even with recent advancements, adopters of contemporary technology are often angry and frustrated with their devices. With the increasing number of devices available to us in our day-to-day lives, and with the emergence of newer technologies like the Internet of Things, there is a stronger need than ever for computers to better understand human needs. However, there is still no machine understandable vocabulary that conceptualizes and describes the human-needs domain. As such, in this thesis we present a cloud-based ontology solution that conceptualizes the needs-domain by describing the relationships between the concepts of an Agent, a Role, a Need, and a Satisfier. The thesis focusses on the design of an OWL ontology which is based on an existing human-needs model. The human-needs model chosen for the ontology stems from a trans-disciplinary approach led by Manfred Max-Neef, called the Fundamental Human Needs model. It is seen as classifiable, finite and constant across all cultures and time periods. The methodology approach used to develop a new ontology is METHONTOLOGY, which is geared toward conceptualizing an ontology from scratch with the mindset of continual evaluation. We then further discuss the overall FHN Ontology comprising of various components including a RESTful Web Service and a SPARQL endpoint for querying and updating the FHN Ontology. The ontology is evaluated via competency questions for validation and via the Ontology Pitfall Scanner for verification and correctness across multiple criteria. The entire system is tested and evaluated by implementing a native android application which serves as a REST client to connect to the FHN Ontology end-point

Health care professionals have begun to view family members as an integral part of the healing process and the well-being of patients in the intensive care unit. The needs of family members may be varied, and nurses must become attuned to the family members' needs and acquire skills to direct interventions toward identifying and meeting those needs. The aim of the research study was to explore and identify the perceptions of family members' needs and to ascertain if those needs were perceived as met or unmet by the family members of patients housed in the intensive care units. The hypothesis proposed that a gap exists between identified needs of family members visiting intensive care patients and their perceptions of needs as being met or unmet. Data analysis included quantitative and qualitative methods.

While there is considerable international interest in the development of hospice and palliative care programs, as an alternative form of care for the terminally ill, there is minimal empirical research undertaken on the needs of recipients of these programs. Using a Q-sort, developed by the author, this research examined the relationship between individual patient's ranking of their needs, and the nurse's perception of the needs identified by individual patients in their care. A basic assumption of the study was that patients' needs could be categorised in four groups, namely spiritual, physical, emotional, and social. Consequently, the study also examined whether patients and nurses identified, as most important, needs from one group, more frequently than the other groups. The limited size of the sample placed severe restrictions on the analysis of results derived from this research. However, while no definite conclusions could be drawn from data obtained from the small sample, tentative analysis identified trends that may have proved significant had they continued in a larger sample.

MSc (Nursing), Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand / The purpose of this study was to elicit and compare nurses’ and families’ perception of family needs in intensive care unit. A quantitative non-experimental, comparative and descriptive research design was used to achieve research objectives. Participants (nurses, n= 65; family members, n= 61) were drawn from three intensive care units. Data were collected using a questionnaire developed from the Critical Care Family Needs Inventory (CCFNI). Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. Majority (more than 50%) of both groups agreed with 42 out of 45 family need statements. All the nurses (100%, n=65) agreed with the need ‘to have explanations that are understandable’ while most family members (98%, n=58) agreed with the need ‘to feel that health care professionals care about the patient’. Seven out of ten statements agreed by majority of both groups were similar. Most of these statements were related to assurance and information need categories. In addition, both groups scored high on the two categories, assurance and information. However, family members scored higher than nurses in two categories, assurance and proximity with statistically significant difference (p-value < 0.05). Based on the research findings, it can therefore be concluded that generally there were similarities between nurses’ and families’ perception of family needs. These findings support evidence in literature resulting from previous studies.

Investigations were carried out to project the food needs of the world population by 2000 A. D., and to explore the possibilities of meeting these requirements. About 70 percent of the world populations presently living in developing countries do not get adequate diets, and suffer from many diseases of under- nutrition and malnutrition. they are unable to increase food production themselves. People in the developed nations have enough food and their food production is increasing at a rate faster than the rate of growth of population. Cultivable land is the main source of food for man. The seas can also be relied upon for high quality food. At present, both of these sources are not fully exploited. The amount of fresh water available can be efficiently used to irrigate additional land. Food production in the developing countries could be more than doubled by the use of modern technology. The use of machine:ry, genetically improved crop varieties, fertilizers, pest control, storage and preservation, and distribution facilities can make valuable contributions towards food production and utilization. Much of the world's malnutrition and under-nutrition is due to ignorance. Food habits and cultural practices need to be changed. People should learn to make the best use of the food available to them. The deficiencies of essential nutrients in the diets can be met by supplementing the grains with synthetic and substitute foods which could be produced on a large scale from locally grown grains and offered at reasonable rates. The majority of the people in the developing countries are illiterate. They must be educated, but this will take time. Technical education deserves priority over other education. A high rate of population increase is accompanied by a high percentage of children in the population. A large part of the national income is spent on these children and there is little capital formation. This inhibits economic progress. The developing countries have realized this now and some of them have adopted official population policies. The developed nations and many international agencies have come forward to help the developing countries to increase food production and to check population growth through family planning programs. The new birth control devices; namely, the pill and the intrauterine contraceptive device (IUD or IUCD) , promise great hopes. The developing countries should make the best use of the capital and technicians loaned to them and attain a self sustaining economic growth. During the last two decades, Mexico and Israel have increased their food production by about 250 percent. New varieties of rice and wheat have been developed in the Philippines and Mexico and are being adapted to the South East Asian countries. Present technology is capable of increasing world food production many fold. The same technology can also be employed to control the abnormal growth of population. Perhaps the world will have no difficulty in feeding its population adequately by 2000 A. D.

The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) allocated $940 million in 2002, through Title II of the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency (CARE) Act, to help states improve the quality and availability of health related services for people living with HIV/AIDS . These resources are allocated based upon recommendations made by community planning committees, which in turn base their recommendations on HIV/AIDS needs assessments. A methodologically sound, comprehensive needs assessment is a critical component of effective resource allocation decisions. Poor needs assessments might lead to poor resource allocation decisions, which might have life-threatening consequences for people living with HIV/AIDS. Little is known about the quality of Ryan White Title II (RWTII) needs assessments. This dissertation identifies seven elements of a high quality needs assessment, which might serve as an assessment tool for funding agencies and as a guidance tool for grantees. The author uses the seven elements in a review of RWTII needs assessments to provide evidence pertaining to the current level of quality of RWTII needs assessments. The seven elements are then applied in a case study of improved practice to demonstrate how to adequately apply the key elements of a high quality needs assessment.

This study aims to develop knowledge of different professional groups and their views on inclusion and collaboration concerning "students in difficulty." Through qualitative interviews and a quantitative survey, the researcher sought answers to this and also how inclusion, through collaboration between different professional groups, can develop in school.The results of the study have been analyzed according by Nilholms (2007) three different perspectives on special education: The critical perspective, the compensatory perspective and the dilemma perspective. The results were also analyzed based on Ahlberg's (2013) communicative – relationship perspective.The result shows that the concept of inclusion is not clearly defined either in the governing documents or among the interviewees. This makes it difficult to speak the same language in school, which complicates the work of inclusion. Since the governing documents are unclear and somewhat contradictory when dealing with "students in difficulty" educators are put in a dilemma. It is on the one hand about the importance of early identification and remedy difficulties and on the other hand not to categorize students. Another concern is on the one hand to see differences as opportunities for learning and on the other hand that all students should attain the curriculum objectives. Students should at the same time feel good and happy at school. The result also shows that the cooperation that existed around "students in difficulty” has been minimal at schools. In contrast, all interviewees’ see good cooperation as crucial to the quality of work with students. Surprising facts is that it seems to be easier to see and talk about what others should do to improve together than to see one’s own part in the work for development. One conclusion is also that the majority of the respondents see the economic foundations are setting up barriers by time, room, materials and resource shortages, and also large classes.