This study investigates the experience of students of German when reading German texts for academic purposes. Research into reading in a second or foreign language has focused predominantly on English as a Second or Foreign Language but there have been more studies recently exploring reading in languages other than English. The research community has acknowledged a greater need for studies in this area, particularly with focus on reading in a foreign language for academic purposes. Indeed, there has been a call for thorough qualitative research that responds to the complex activity of reading in a foreign language, which, as has been recognised, is influenced by a multitude of sociocultural factors, factors pertaining to the process of language acquisition, factors that impact the imminent reading situation as well as individual learner factors. This investigation into students' experience of reading German for academic purposes looks at the individual learner experience, with an attempt to take into account various factors that influence the individual student's approach to texts. The goal of the study is to gain a more detailed insight into students' reading processes and to provide suggestions for a teaching approach that guides students towards developing their strategic competence in reading for academic purposes. The study is based on social-constructivist principles (discussed in chapter 3) and incorporates a focused review of research into foreign and second language reading and reading strategies (chapter 2). Students' reading processes were investigated using a multiple stage and method approach to data collection conducted over the course of three academic years at a German Department of a British university. This included a pre- and post-module reading comprehension test and questionnaire, a questionnaire on reading for academic purposes which included a four-tiered reading comprehension test, and a think-aloud study with two student cohorts incorporating both paired and individual think-aloud sessions. The pre-and post-module questionnaire and the think-aloud study were directly related to my teaching of the applied linguistics module Fachsprachen im Alltag aimed at developing students' text analysis skills. In an effort to apply constructivist principles and respond to student feedback. I revised the module to develop a more student-led and cooperative teaching approach. Its impact on student performance was tested in the post-module questionnaire as well as the think-aloud sessions. The questionnaire on reading for academic purposes investigated students' attitudes and motivations towards reading and allowed them to assess the role of the university as well as their own reading abilities. Chapters 4 to 7 discuss the results of the data collection. Chapter 4 looks at students' self-evaluation of reading comprehension skills and strategy use. Chapter 5 investigates the role of the university as well as students' attitudes towards reading for academic purposes. Chapter 6 focuses on self-recorded strategy use based on the four-tiered self-administered reading comprehension test that formed part of the questionnaire study. Chapter 7 discusses the results of the think-aloud study, which allowed insight into students' actual strategy use as could be observed in the think-aloud sessions. Findings reveal that students are capable of evaluating their own performance and have the ability to assess their strategy use, demonstrating meta-cognitive awareness. Students are also cognizant of the apparent gap that exists between studying German at A-Levels and studying German at university, and of the problems that this gap creates for them. Related to this is their expectation that the university is to take on a certain level of responsibility to bridge that gap and for developing students' reading comprehension skills by offering the necessary support. With regards to students' reading comprehension skills and strategy use, this study provides evidence that students understand the purpose of reading academic texts in German as 'reading to learn', i.e., to construct new knowledge and apply a critical approach to working with the text. They tend to apply mainly those types of reading strategies that help them understand the text at word and sentence level but their approach can often be tedious and inefficient. Students seem to lack a sufficiently advanced set of reading strategies that they can apply flexibly and effectively. Results of the reading comprehension tests also provide evidence that students struggle with linguistic features that are typically and frequently used in German texts for academic purposes. Finally, an analysis of the think-aloud protocols allows the conclusion that a teaching approach that promotes students' responsibility for their own learning, both as individuals as well as in collaborative settings, is beneficial to developing students' reading strategy repertoire.

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Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Zimbabwe was beset by militarised politically-inspired violence between 2000 and 2008. How that violence has been imagined in terms of its causes, memorialisation and impact has been far from conclusive. As a derivative of this huge question that forms an important component of the framing for this dissertation, and to“visibilise” the subaltern, so to say, and to visualise “history from below”, I ask how the women of Shurugwi conceptualise it. This question has also polarised Zimbabweans into two, broadly the human rights and the redistributive, camps. But I ask, what do either of these frameworks enable or eclipse in the further understanding of the violence? Deploying genealogical and ethnographic approaches centred on the rural communities of Shurugwi that analyse the historical, socioeconomic and political factors that have engendered human rights abuses from pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial moments, the dissertation problematizes both discourses and invites a much more troubled analysis.As a way to complicate the reading and to attempt to open the analysis of the violence further, I draw on the theoretical insights from Michel Foucault’s theory on the relationship between power and war. Inverting Clausewitz’s aphorism of war as politics by other means, Foucault argues instead that politics is war by other means. This inversion allows for a nuancing of the connections between the violence and the Chimurenga trope in Zimbabwe. In this way, the labelling of farm takeovers and other force-driven indigenisation modes in the new millennium as the Third Chimurenga, I demonstrate, was not a mere emotive evocation, but was meant to situate the violence as the final stage in a sequence with, and in the same category of importance as, the earlier zvimurenga, that is the First and Second Chimurenga that targeted to uproot the colonial project. I thus argue that the violence represented, in a significant way, the continuation of war for ZANU-PF to retain power amid dwindling electoral returns. This mode further illuminates the deployment of the spectacles of punishment for the public disciplining of citizens to achieve their passivity. Throughout the dissertation the central and animating question is to what extent were women the invisible victims of the violence? This question attempts to interrogate the political role of women in the violence. I attend to this question by privileging the narratives of women. Also, by articulating an Africanist feminist discourse that contests the dominant western one which atemporalises, universalises and fixes victimhood with females, this dissertation invites a re-looking of the violence in a way that locates agency at the site of performance. In this way I show that women were not perpetual victims, but were also important political actors whose actions, however small, greatly extended the violence. To conclude, I propose the adoption of the “traditional” Shona practice of kuripa ngozi as a transitional justice mechanism to help stamp out the culture and cycles of violence and impunity that have scarred Zimbabwe especially from the late colonial to the post-colonial eras.

The core question of the study is why, after 28 years of being in power, has the ZANU-PF liberation movement failed to effectively make the transition to a democratic ZANU-PF political party. The study adds to the debate on the role of liberation movements in the furthering of human rights and democratisation in Africa by tackling the much ignored perspective of a blocked transition that the movements such as the ZANU-PF are culpable for. Looks at what internal factors (within Zimbabwe) have contributed to this blocked transition, examines how the behaviour or response of Zimbabwe’s regional neighbours (SADC), been a contributing factor to this dilemma and questions the extent to which the wider African continent been party to this mayhem of the ZANU-PF’s stalled transition. / A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Law University of Pretoria, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Masters of Law (LLM in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa). Prepared under the supervision of Gilles Cistac, Faculty of Law, Universidade Eduardo Modlande, Maputo, Mocambique. / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa))--University of Pretoria, 2009. / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/ / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

Analysis of technical efficiency can be carried out by several possible approaches, such as a deterministic parametric approach, deterministic non-parametric approach (data envelopment analysis) and stochastic parametric approach. The content of this work is an analysis using stochastic parametric approach and deals with the efficiency computed by the help of production functions. The best known and most commonly used aggregate production function is a Cobb-Douglas production function, which is a modification of the static formulation of a relationship between variables and factors of production. The analysis of efficiency can be explained by using of different factors. In this work, the effectiveness is analyzed by the export value of controlled entities and dependent on GDP and public investment. Technical efficiency is studied comparing twenty-seven European Union economies. The analysis is applied to the universal values of the variables and the values per capita.

Phenol formaldehyde (PF) resol resins have long been used widely as wood adhesives due to their excellent bonding performance, water resistance and durability. With the growing concern for fossil fuel depletion and climate change, there is a strong interest in exploring renewable biomass materials as substitutes for petroleum-based feedstock. Bark, rich in phenolic compounds, has demonstrated potential to partially substitute phenol in synthesizing bio-based PF resins. In this study, acid-catalyzed phenol liquefaction and alkaline extraction were used to convert mountain pine beetle (MPB; Dendroctonus ponderosae) infested lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) barks to phenol substitutes, liquefied bark and bark extractives. Two types of bio-based phenol formaldehyde (PF) resol resins, namely liquefied bark-PF resin and bark extractive-PF resins, were then synthesized and characterized. It was found that acid-catalyzed phenol liquefaction and alkaline extraction were effective conversion methods to obtain phenol substitute with the maximum yield of 85% and 68%, respectively. The bio-based PF resol resins had higher molecular weights, higher polydispersity indices, shorter gel times, and faster curing rates than the lab synthesized control PF resin without the bark components. Based on the lap-shear tests, the bio-based PF resol resins exhibited comparable wet and dry bonding strength to lab PF resin and commercial PF resin. The post-curing thermal stability of the bio-based PF resins was similar to the lab control PF resin. The liquid-state 13C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) study revealed significant influences on the resin structures by the inclusion of the bark components. Methylene ether bridges, which were absent in the lab PF resin, were found in the bio-based PF resins. The bark components favored the formation of para-ortho methylene linkages in the bio-based bark extractive-PF resins. The liquefied bark-PF resin showed a higher ratio of para-para/ortho-para methylene link (-CH2-), a higher unsubstituted/substituted hydrogen (-H/-CH2OH) ratio and a higher methylol/methylene (-CH2OH/-CH2-) ratio than the bark extractive-PF resin. Both tannin components of bark alkaline extractives and phenolated barks contributed to the acceleration of the curing rate of the bio-based resins. This research demonstrated the promise of the bio-based PF resins containing either bark alkaline extractives or liquefied barks as environmentally friendly alternatives to PF adhesives derived solely from fossil fuel based phenol and proposed a novel higher value-added application of the largely available barks from the mountain pine beetle-infested lodgepole pine trees.

Phenol formaldehyde (PF) resol resins have long been used widely as wood adhesives due to their excellent bonding performance, water resistance and durability. With the growing concern for fossil fuel depletion and climate change, there is a strong interest in exploring renewable biomass materials as substitutes for petroleum-based feedstock. Bark, rich in phenolic compounds, has demonstrated potential to partially substitute phenol in synthesizing bio-based PF resins. In this study, acid-catalyzed phenol liquefaction and alkaline extraction were used to convert mountain pine beetle (MPB; Dendroctonus ponderosae) infested lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) barks to phenol substitutes, liquefied bark and bark extractives. Two types of bio-based phenol formaldehyde (PF) resol resins, namely liquefied bark-PF resin and bark extractive-PF resins, were then synthesized and characterized. It was found that acid-catalyzed phenol liquefaction and alkaline extraction were effective conversion methods to obtain phenol substitute with the maximum yield of 85% and 68%, respectively. The bio-based PF resol resins had higher molecular weights, higher polydispersity indices, shorter gel times, and faster curing rates than the lab synthesized control PF resin without the bark components. Based on the lap-shear tests, the bio-based PF resol resins exhibited comparable wet and dry bonding strength to lab PF resin and commercial PF resin. The post-curing thermal stability of the bio-based PF resins was similar to the lab control PF resin. The liquid-state 13C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) study revealed significant influences on the resin structures by the inclusion of the bark components. Methylene ether bridges, which were absent in the lab PF resin, were found in the bio-based PF resins. The bark components favored the formation of para-ortho methylene linkages in the bio-based bark extractive-PF resins. The liquefied bark-PF resin showed a higher ratio of para-para/ortho-para methylene link (-CH2-), a higher unsubstituted/substituted hydrogen (-H/-CH2OH) ratio and a higher methylol/methylene (-CH2OH/-CH2-) ratio than the bark extractive-PF resin. Both tannin components of bark alkaline extractives and phenolated barks contributed to the acceleration of the curing rate of the bio-based resins. This research demonstrated the promise of the bio-based PF resins containing either bark alkaline extractives or liquefied barks as environmentally friendly alternatives to PF adhesives derived solely from fossil fuel based phenol and proposed a novel higher value-added application of the largely available barks from the mountain pine beetle-infested lodgepole pine trees.

"Precise Tracking of Things (PToT) using RF signals has posed a serious challenge in an indoor environment. The precision localization information is an enabler for better coordinated-tasks and is essential for a successful launch of many emerging applications. PToT relies on two principal components, a novel navigation (tracking) algorithm, and a hybrid 3D fingerprint database. In this dissertation, we begin by using the two widely known ranging techniques, Time Of Arrival (TOA) associated with Ultra-wideband (UWB) and Received Signal Strength (RSS) with WiFi signals. First, we use the theoretical models derived from empirical measurement of TOA and RSS to analyze the performance of hybrid (WiFi & UWB) cooperative localization accuracy in a multi-robot operation in a typical office environment. To measure the performance of this hybrid localization, we derive a mathematical formulation for the Crame ́r-Rao-Lower- Bound (CRLB). The hybrid method shows more accuracy over WiFi-only approach. In achieving more precision, we extend our work. Second, we introduce a novel approach, a Kernel Method Particle Filter (KMPF) for tracking and predicting the position by accessing the information created by hybrid 3D fingerprint database. We derive the mathematical and statistical framework for the Particle Filter based on the statistical assumptions about the behavior of channel models. We also describe the formation of one of the necessary PToT component, a 3D fingerprint database. We compare the performance of the KMPF against the CRLB using WiFi signal channel models."

This paper proposes a novel analysis of the Russian OVS construction and argues that the parametric variation in the availability of OVS cross-linguistically depends on the type of relative interpretative argument prominence that a language encodes via syntactic structure. When thematic and information-structural prominence relations do not coincide, only one of them can be structurally/linearly represented. The relation that is not structurally/linearly encoded must be made visible at the PF interface either via prosody or morphology.

国立情報学研究所で電子化したコンテンツを使用している。