Inaug.-Diss.--Stuttgart. / Lebenslauf. "Verzeichnis der benutzten schriften" : p. [v]-viii.

The Counterlife of Knight Errant Christie McKay is a novel about a man with two lives. Christie McKay is a middle-aged academic who has a self-harming partner he cannot leave. On a sabbatical studying Don Quixote he meets another woman and falls in love. However, instead of leaving his self-harming nemesis, he concocts an absurd fantasy that will allow him to lead a double life and have a relationship with both women at the same time. His attempts to compartmentalize both lives leads to tragedy as the one crashes into the other with dire consequences. The novel was partly inspired by Philip Roth’s notion of ‘the counterlife’, this being the double life that is created in order to make the official one somehow more manageable. Thus the rococo fantasies of a Billy Liar or, more commonly, the prosaic extramarital affair. The Trials of Philip Roth: Writing as Ordeal and Punishment examines the influence of a recurring trope in the writings of Philip Roth which I have called ‘The Trial’. I trace the development of this feature to a negative reaction to Roth’s early work, most notably the Goodbye Columbus collection of short stories and the novel Portnoy’s Complaint. The thesis examines the changing nature of this ‘trial’ conceit and how it is broadened and developed by Roth in the later works, especially in the so-called American Trilogy series of novels. I argue that the basic structure of the trial involves an individual, almost always a man, unjustly accused of some heinous crime by the presiding arbiters of moral taste. This individual is usually hounded and banished by their particular community. While acknowledging the complex differences between fiction and autobiography, I argue that Roth’s personal experiences of being on trial, in the earliest work for supposedly having ridiculed American suburban Jews, has helped to produce a body of work which feeds on rage and moral indignation and which repeatedly puts the individual up against a censorious community with suffocating concepts of normalcy.

To assess non-inferiority of an experimental product to an active control in a clinical trial, an ideal design is to include a placebo arm to ensure both the experimental product and the active control is superior to placebo. We aim to identify methodology to control Type I error rate and maintain adequate power in a superiority/non-inferiority seamless clinical trial defined as: 1. selecting the best experimental treatment dose vs. placebo out of multiple treatment doses in Stage I; and 2. assessing non-inferiority of the chosen experimental dose to an active control, after adding subjects to yield adequate power for non-inferiority, in Stage II. The trial design here is an antihypertensive trial with change in systolic blood pressure as the outcome. The trial has three experimental treatment doses arms of experimental, a placebo control arm, and an active control arm. A simulation study of 20,000 such trials was conducted. We apply multiple comparison methodologies in Stage I to detect the most beneficial experimental treatment dose versus placebo, and test non-inferiority of the selected experimental dose to the active control in Stage II. Simulated Type I error rate and power for claiming non-inferiority are calculated for various dose-response trends. The need to adjust alpha to control Type I error either stage is assessed, seeking the optimal approach for doing so. Next, type I error and power for various fixed and variable non-inferiority margins are evaluated, exploring a range of margins informed by the first stage results of the study. A variable non-inferiority margin informed completely by the first stage of the trial approach results in inflated error rate which cannot be controlled by suggested multiplicity adjustments. We assess a synthesis approach between the fixed and variable margins, to both control the family-wise error rates and reach adequate power, depending on a tuning parameter defined in our work. We conclude that well-designed and adequately controlled seamless superiority/non-inferiority trials are possible with appropriate multiple comparisons adjustments and could result in less development time and fewer subjects needed to assess efficacy than separate trials.

A salient defect of South African civil procedural law is its lack of a formally recognised fact-discovery mechanism for the purpose of complimenting the process of pre-trial litigation. This defect comes to the fore when the South African discovery model is compared with those of other Anglo-American jurisdictions. In common with other Anglo-American civil procedural systems, South African civil procedural law has formally incorporated within its rules of court a system of discovery, but its discovery model is restricted to that of documentary discovery. 1 In contradistinction with the South African model, the scope of the discovery models of the United Kingdom,2 Austraiia3 and New Zealand4 is far wider in that they include not only documentary discovery but also fact-discovery in the form of interrogatories. The discovery models of the United States5 and Canada6 are even more liberal than the aforementioned because, apart from the practice of documentary discovery and the exchange of interrogatories, oral depositions as a mode of discovery are also permitted. Seen in this context, there is a notional difference between the South African model and the discovery models of other Anglo-American systems in that the latter recognise and apply fact-discovery as a procedure distinct from documentary discovery. Why is this so?

Background: As part of this thesis work, we developed a Shower Technique protocol (‘STP’) for hemodialysis patients with healed central venous catheter (catheter) exit sites, designed to permit showering but not increase infection risk. Research question: Is it feasible to conduct a randomized control trial called the Hemodialysis Infection Prevention using Polysporin Ointment with Shower Technique in Satellite Centres (HIPPO SAT) study comparing the rate of CRB in adult satellite hemodialysis patients using STP versus standard catheter care alone with 6 month follow up? Study Design: The HIPPO SAT pilot study is a multi-centre randomized control trial. Eligible participants will be randomized to STP versus standard care after meeting predefined criteria to confirm healed tunneled catheter exit site. Primary Outcome: Feasibility will be determined based on 5 outcome measures: accuracy of the CRB rate documentation in the satellite setting, and percentage of patients screened, recruited, educated successfully in the STP (intervention arm), and using aspects of STP (% of contaminated patients in the control arm). Study Setting: In satellite units affiliated with 2 academic and 3 community centres in south central Ontario, Canada. Patient Population: Adult satellite Hemodialysis patients dialyzing via catheter with healed catheter exit sites. Intervention: STP and standard catheter care; or Control: standard catheter care; Analysis: Each measure of feasibility has its statistical threshold for success. If the threshold is reached in 4 of the 5 measures, the full HIPPO SAT study will be deemed feasible. Discussion: A pilot feasibility study of the larger study is critical due to the potential challenges associated with recruitment, compliance and contamination. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

This thesis presents a study of the effectiveness of a blocked series of stimulus presentations in training pigeons to perform a discrimination. It was found that this sequence of trial presentations was a least as effective as training with a random sequence of trial presentations. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

No / Designing a large research trial to comprehensively evaluate the impact of a service initiative can be daunting but it is not beyond the skills and abilities of radiographers and non-medical professionals. This paper describes the development of a protocol and operational aspects of a multi-centre randomised controlled trial of radiographer immediate reporting. While the focus of the research is specific, the research design stages are transferable and not context dependent and therefore can be applied to different clinical fields. The intention of this paper is to make transparent and explicit the steps in the design and operation of this research and by doing so, offer an objective reflection on each phase of the process to enhance professional understanding of the practicalities of operating a clinical trial. Keywords

Yes

This thesis looks at the role of the lawyer in a civil trial. This should always be conceived as the lawyer as a legal expert contributes to the carrying out of justice and also the basic objective of the civil trial being realised, i.e. securing effective protection of the rights and legally protected interests of individual persons. The thesis gives basic premises which in particular involve definitions of civil trial terms and the status of the lawyer, including the historical context of the development of the lawyer role within Czech territory. The main part of the thesis then looks at individual methods for representing parties in civil trial proceedings and the role of the lawyer is his different tasks. A comparison is further made with representation in proceedings before the European Union's Court of Justice. In the lawyer's professional activities, the observance of certain ethical principles which should be referred to in their work, as well as the basic premise of lawyer responsibility, also plays a role. The thesis' conclusion considers the opportunities of de lege ferenda in the lawyer's trial with the goal of noting the benefits in particular, but also the drawbacks of this solution. KEYWORDS Lawyer, civil trial, lawyer's trial

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Dentist University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in part fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master Dentistry in the Branch of Maxillo-Facial and Oral Surgery. / Pain, swelling and trismus are common features after oral surgery, particularly after the surgical removal of impacted third molar teeth. The Maxillo-Facial and Oral Surgeon has a vast array of drugs at his disposal to combat post-operative pain, but none of these are perfect in terms of efficacy and side effects. Recently, the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs have been receiving much attention as post-operative analgesics. / IT2018