The field study based on a questionnaire, classroom observation and a range of interviews with government officials and teachers confirmed a deeply negative attitude towards the way SiSwati is being taught, resulting in negative attitudes towards the language itself. Other findings pointed to a resistance to the cultural content of the curriculum as dictated by the power elite in Swaziland, the outdated emphasis on linguistics rather than sociolinguistics as an informing discipline and the absence of social and negative literacy skills embedded in subject content. The field study reflects an overall climate of despondency governing the teaching and learning context.

Pituitary adenomas account for roughly 12% of all intracranial tumours and are treated either surgically or medically. Due to the prevalence, there have been many articles focusing on their treatment. Recently, a few studies have been published suggesting a link between pituitary tumours, their treatment and cognitive dysfunction. These articles challenge the texts put forward to date, texts that demarcate adenoma treatment effects to the realm of the physicaL The mechanism(s) behind these supposed deficits have not yet been identified, largely because of problematic research designs and sampling. In the South African context, practitioners tend to encounter a greater proportion of macroadenomas than developed countries. Working on the assumption that the effects of adenomas are magnified in macroadenoma patients, the South African situation provides a base of extreme cases in which any potential dysfunction has the best chance to declare itself. This is particularly valuable given the controversy surrounding the presence of these cognitive deficits.

This study investigates the gender trends within psychology since 1990 using a quantitative assessment of enrolments and graduations, professional registrations, academic staff composition, and publication output in psychology in South Africa. Among the current trends, five are noteworthy: the rapid growth of the profession; the disproportionate increase in the number of female psychologists; the disproportionate number of White psychologists; the increasing emphasis on practical aspects of the discipline and the decline of the scientific; and the under-representation of women as authors in psychology publications.

This project was an evaluation of the initial interview as experienced by a sample of six families who utilised the services of the CGC in 2003. Families were given a semi-structured interview schedule which focussed on a number of common experiences of the assessment interview. A thematic analysis was employed to understand this qualitative enquiry into the family's perception of a service sometimes criticised as traditional, elitist and contradictory to the proposal that a broader, more community based intervention be proffered.

Subarachnoid haemorrhage secondary to ruptured cerebral aneurysm and clipping are associated with substantial morbidity and mortality. Despite favourable neurological outcomes, many patients report persistent cognitive and emotional deficits post intervention. To compare cognitive and quality of life outcomes in patients with ruptured aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage treated with surgical clipping or endovascular coiling. Twenty-four patients with aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage treated by clipping or coiling were retrospectively assessed by use of a battery of cognitive tests and a quality of life questionnaire. All patients had favourable grades on admission, that is, WFNS <= 2 and favourable neurological grades on discharge, that is, GOS <=2. treated with surgical clipping or endovascular coiling. Patients in the two treatment groups were matched on age, years of education and on premorbid IQ. The two groups were further matched on time from intervention to assessment and number of treatments. The cognitive performance of the treatment groups was compared to hospitalised controls, matched for age, years of education and premorbid IQ. Comparison of cognitive outcome between the two groups indicated a trend towards poorer outcome in the surgical group which achieved significance on six test measures. There were no significant differences with respect to the quality of life measure. Patients surviving aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage are likely to suffer from a 'subarachnoid-induced encephalopathy' which appears to be more aggravated by the invasive nature of surgery, compared to endovascular coiling, as demonstrated by the poorer cognitive performance ofthe clipping patients.

This study investigated the relationship between visual cues in art reproductions, simple linguistic time vocabulary and children's temporal understandings. During interview sessions, 33 third-grade students attending two suburban schools were asked to place three art postcard reproductions sets in chronological order. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and coded for analysis. Linguistic references used to represent historical time and visual cues within the art postcards which caused students to place art works in a particular time sequence were documented.

Silicon alternatives to quartz crystal based oscillators to electronic system clocking are explored. A study of clocking requirements reveals widely different specifications for different applications. Traditional CMOS oscillator-based solutions are optimized for low-cost fully integrated micro-controller clock applications. The frequency variability of these clock generators is studied and techniques to compensate for this variability are proposed. The efficacy of these techniques in reducing variability is proven theoretically and experimentally. MEMS-resonator based oscillators, due to their exceptional quality factors, are identified as suitable integrated replacements to quartz based oscillators for higher accuracy applications such as data converter clocks. The frequency variation in these oscillators is identified and techniques to minimize the same are proposed and demonstrated. The sources of short-term variation (phase noise) in these oscillators are discussed and an inclusive theory of phase noise is developed. Techniques to improve phase noise are proposed. Findings from this research indicate that MEMS resonator based oscillators, may in future, outperform quartz based solutions in certain applications such as voltage controlled oscillators. The implications of these findings and potential directions for future research are identified.

Dans des situations où la perception visuelle est fortement contrainte ou déficiente, il est nécessaire de rendre perceptible l'information dans une modalité non visuelle, tout en prenant en compte des capacités sensorielles et mnésiques humaines. Par exemple, un non-voyant, souhaitant prendre connaissance d'un itinéraire, devra le parcourir de façon non visuelle et le mémoriser. Cependant, outre l'aspect matériel, la mise en œuvre de solutions alternatives (non visuelles) demeure confrontée aux capacités cognitives de l'utilisateur (compréhension, mémorisation, intégration de plusieurs informations, etc.). L'objet de cette thèse est de contribuer à la conception de techniques d'interactions permettant d'optimiser la transmission non visuelle d'informations. A ces fins, j'ai exploré l'apport de la multimodalité comme moyen d'optimisation permettant d'outrepasser les limites de la mémorisation. Je me suis concentré sur l'étude des techniques d'interaction basées sur les modalités auditives et tactiles, en limitant au maximum l'utilisation de la parole, afin de concevoir des techniques pour des environnements différents (flexibilité), d'optimiser l'utilisation de canaux perceptifs (exploitation des propriétés du son dans des messages audio pour transmettre plus d'informations, par exemple), d'éviter de limiter mes techniques par la barrière de la langue ou de sa compréhension et enfin, pour explorer d'autres solutions que la synthèse vocale seule. Les travaux de ma thèse ont mené à la conception, à l'implémentation et à l'évaluation de techniques d'interaction multimodale non visuelle, en réponse à différents contextes, dont, en particulier, ceux de la transmission d'informations de type <valeur>, <position> (couple de coordonnées) et <itinéraire> (séquence de couples direction-distance). Pour parvenir à concevoir mes interactions, j'ai, tout d'abord, effectué une revue de la littérature, afin d'en extraire les principaux facteurs de conception de techniques d'interaction dédiées à la transmission non visuelle d'information. Puis, j'ai organisé ces facteurs sous la forme d'un cadre d'analyse, sur lequel je me suis appuyé pour concevoir chacune de mes techniques. Trois expériences distinctes ont permis d'évaluer l'influence de facteurs de conception sur l'efficacité des interactions et la satisfaction des utilisateurs vis-à-vis des techniques. Je peux, notamment, citer l'implication des utilisateurs (actif ou passif), la présence d'aides explicites", la transmission de plusieurs informations en parallèle et la modalité principale utilisée et, le type de codage dans lequel est encodée l'information. / In situations where the visual perception is strongly constraint or deficient, it is necessary to make perceptible the information with a "not visual form" while taking into account human sensory and mnesic capacities. For example, a blind person wishing to acquaint an itinerary must read it under a non visual form and memorize it. However, besides the material aspect, the implementation of alternatives (non-visual) still faces to the cognitive abilities of the user (comprehension, memorization, integration of various information, etc.). The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the design of interaction techniques allowing to optimize the transmission not visual of the information. For these purposes, I explored the feature of multimodality as a means of optimization, allowing of exceeding the memorization limits. I focused on the study of interaction techniques based on auditory and tactile modalities and by minimizing the use of the speech, in order to develop techniques for different environments (flexibility), optimize the use of perceptual channels (operating the properties of sound in audio messages to transmit more information, for example), avoid limiting my techniques by the language barrier or understanding and finally, to explore alternatives to the synthesised voice alone. The works of my thesis led to the design, to the implementation and to the evaluation of interaction techniques "non-visual" and "multiform", in answer to different contexts, whom in particular those of the information transmission of type <value>, <position> (pair of coordinates) and <itinerary> (sequence of couples direction-distance). To achieve design my interactions, I have made a review of literature in order to extract the main factors of design of interaction techniques dedicated to the transmission not visual of the information. Then, I have organized these factors in an analytical framework on which I have relied to design each of my techniques. Three separate experiments were led to evaluate the influence of design factors on the effectiveness of interactions and satisfaction towards users of technology. I can give some of them, the involvement of users (active or passive), the presence of explicit help, the transmission of several information in parallel, the main modality used and the type of coding in which is encoded the information.

The main topic of this thesis is the translation of the food-related cultural references. The theoretical part is primarily focused on translation techniques and strategies which are usually used for the translation of cultural elements. Furthermore, the other objective of this part is to introduce this topic in the context of the teaching of Spanish as a foreign language. Specifically, it deals with the incorporation of a sociocultural component in the Spanish courses and the translation as a pedagogical tool. The theoretical foundations are put into practice in a translation techniques analysis and there is also a didactic proposal designed for Czech students of Translation and Interpreting.

[pt] Referências fracas e finalizadores constituem uma alternativa elegante para se obter controle sobre a interação entre a aplicação e o coletor de lixo. No entanto, em alguns contextos, finalizadores são desnecessários, pois é possível estender o mecanismo de referências fracas a fim de dar suporte a finalização. Neste trabalho, realizamos um estudo detalhado sobre os usos desses mecanismos e mostramos como é possível substituir finalizadores por referências fracas propondo uma implementação baseada em referências fraca para cada uso de finalizadores. Baseado nesse estudo, desenvolvemos um mecanismo de finalização via referências fracas para a linguagem Lua. Motivados por nossa proposta de uma maior exploração do mecanismo de referências, desenvolvemos um algoritmo para um importante problema relacionado a ciclos em tabelas fracas, uma estrutura criada a partir de referências fracas. A existência de referências cíclicas entre chaves e valores impede que os elementos que compõem o ciclo sejam coletados, mesmo que eles não sejam mais utilizados pelo programa. Isso acaba dificultando o uso de tabelas fracas em determinadas aplicações. A linguagem Haskell resolveu esse problema através de uma adaptação do mecanismo de ephemerons ao seu coletor de lixo. Partindo desse fato, modificamos a implementação do coletor de lixo de Lua para que este oferecesse suporte ao mecanismo de ephemerons. Dessa forma, pudemos eliminar o problema de ciclos em tabelas fracas nessa linguagem. / [en] Weak References and finalizers constitute an elegant alternative to obtain control over the interaction between the application and the garbage collector. However, in some contexts, finalizers are not necessary because it`s possible to extend the weak reference mechanism in order to give support to finalization. In this work, we present a survey of the most common uses of these mechanisms. We also show how weak references can replace finalizers proposing a weak reference based implementation for each finalizer use. Based on this survey, we developed a finalization mechanism based on weak references for the Lua programming language. Motivated by our proposal of a better exploration of the weak reference mechanism, we developed a solution for an important problem related to cycles on weak tables, an structure created using weak references. Cyclic references between keys and values prevents the elements inside the cycle from being collected, even if they are no more reachable. This ends up bringing difficulties to the use of weak tables in certain kinds of applications. The Haskell programming language solved this problem implementing an adaptation of a mechanism called ephemerons. Based on this fact, we modified the Lua garbage collector in order to offer support to ephemerons. As a result, we were able to solve the problem of cycles on weak tables in Lua.