In South Africa, which has the largest HIV infected population world-wide, more than 5 million individuals presently live with HIV and AIDS (Evian, 2002:20; LINAIDS, 2004:19). These HIV-infected patients in turn affect the family structure within which they find themselves in a specific community. According to Saleeby (1992:54) and Barnett and Blaikie (1992:34), several families in South Africa are affected by the challenges posed by AIDS. This research forms part of the group research project, Tswaragano, which deals with an investigation into the competencies, abilities and strengths of the family of the HIV-positive patient while supporting the patient at home (Wessels, 2003:54). Problems such as unemployment, poverty, crime and changed demands in the community where these families live and increased challenges place a tremendous amount of stress on the families (Saleeby, 1992:54; Barnett & Blaikie, 1992:34). A vicious circle of AIDS and poverty is clearly confirmed and it has been found that people who live with HIV and AIDS need more support than health care alone (Booysen et al,. 2004:817-826). It is evident from the literature that, although information regarding HIV and AIDS is conveyed during pre- and post-HIV and AIDS test counselling, the transmission of information is not necessarily successful (Parker et al., 1998:18). A question which hence arises is whether the HIV positive patient and his family who support him at home fully grasp the necessary information. Greeff and Du Plessis (2001:2) confirm that health workers in the North-West Province do not convey the information effectively. Several factors probably contribute to defective information transfer between the health worker and the patient. One factor is that if the environment within which information is conveyed is not comfortable and mutual respect and trust between the health worker and the HIV positive patient is limited, the interpretation of information on HIV and AIDS is impaired (Allender & Spratley, 2001:163). A further aspect that should be taken into consideration is that HIV and AIDS-related information can be understood and internalised by the HIV positive patient in different ways, since several interpretation possibilities exist for information that is conveyed (Parker et al., 1998:20). Health workers who convey the information to the patient does however not always determine whether the HIV positive patient understands and internalises the information correctly (Parker et al., 1998:21). The facts mentioned above not only limit the HIV positive patient's understanding but also eventually the understanding of the family who have to support the HIV positive patient at home, regarding HIV and AIDS. The family can be seen as a primary core support resource for the HIV positive patient (Uys, 1999:2), and limited understanding impairs support at home (Hartman, 1981:10). With this is meant that the family is the "social service agency in meeting the social, educational and health care needs" of its members. The aim of this research was to investigate and describe the understanding of the HIV positive patient and the family regarding HIV and AIDS-related information. Guidelines were formulated to promote the understanding of the family of the HIV positive patient regarding HIV and AIDS-related information with the view to empower the family of the HIV positive patient in order to be able to support the patient at home. The research design was quantitative and descriptive by nature. It entails a pilot study in the Kagiso district, Vryburg area (Bophirima) of the North-West Province. The actual research study was performed in the Primary Health Clinics in the Potchefstroom district of the southern area of the North-West Province. Purposive sampling was performed (Burns & Grove, 2001:376; Brink, 1996:141; Abramson & Abramson, 1999:70; Bainbridge, 1989:46). Selected health workers acted voluntarily as go-betweens to identify HIV positive patients and their families who are prepared to participate in the research and who answer to the criteria, and to assist in filling out the questionnaires. The questionnaires were analysed by means of the frequency method with the assistance of the Statistical Consultation Services of the North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus and reported on by means of tables and graphs (Brink, 1996:499; Burns & Grove, 1997:430). From the research it was found that, although information transfer regarding HIV and AIDS does take place, there still are many voids in respect of the understanding of this information and this pertains to HIV positive patient as well as the families. The researcher has come to the conclusion that the proposed guidelines in order to empower families of the HIV-positive patients to support these patients at home therefore is obvious and important. Furthermore, the researcher is of opinion that families midst the difficult circumstances will realise their own strengths if they could acquire the necessary knowledge and skills. Recommendations were made for nursing education, for the practice of the community nurse as well as for nursing research. Guidelines were formulated to empower the family of the HIV positive patient to be able to support the patient at home. / Thesis (M.Cur.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

The thesis examines the direct reference theory of proper names and natural kind terms as expounded by Saul Kripke, Hilary Putnam and others and finds that it has not succeeded in replacing some kind of description theory of the reference of such terms - although it does concede that the traditional Fregean theory is not quite correct. It is argued that the direct reference theory is mistaken on several counts. First of all it is question-begging. Secondly, it is guilty of a 'use/mention' confusion. And thirdly, and most importantly, it fails to deal with the notion of understanding. The notion of understanding is crucial to the present thesis - specifically, what is understood by a proper name or natural kind term. It is concluded that sense (expressed in the form of descriptions) is at least necessary for reference, which makes a significant difference to Kripke's claim that there are necessary a posteriori truths as well as contingent a priori truths. It is also argued that sense could be sufficient for reference, if it is accepted that it is speakers who effect reference. In this sense, sense determines reference. The thesis therefore not only argues against the account of reference given by the direct reference theorists, it also gives an account of how proper names and natural kind terms actually do function in natural language. As far as the epistemology of necessity is concerned the thesis concludes that Kripke (along with many others) has not succeeded in establishing the existence of the necessary a posteriori nor the contingent a priori from the theory of direct reference. Whether such truths can be established by some other means, or in principle, is not the concern of the thesis; although the point is made that, if a certain view of sense is accepted, then questions of necessity and a priority seem inappropriate.

In this thesis I examine a number of topics that bear on explanation and understanding in molecular and cell biology, in order to shed new light on explanatory practice in those areas and to find novel angles from which to approach relevant philosophical debates. The topics I look at include mechanism, emergence, cellular complexity, and the informational role of the genome. I develop a perspective that stresses the intimacy of the relations between ontology and epistemology. Whether a phenomenon looks mechanistic, or complex, or indeed emergent, is largely an epistemic matter, yet has an objective basis in features of the world. After reviewing several concepts of mechanism I consider the influential recent account of Machamer, Darden and Craver (MDC). That account makes interesting proposals concerning the relationship between mechanistic explanation and intelligibility, which are consistent with the results of the investigation I undertake into the science surrounding protein folding. In relation to a number of other issues pertaining to biological systems I conclude that the MDC account is insufficiently nuanced, however, leading me to outline an alternative approach to mechanism. This emphasizes the importance of structure—function relations and addresses issues raised by reflection on the nature of cellular complexity. These include the distinction between structure and process and the different possible bases on which system organization may be maintained. The account I give of emergence construes the phenomenon in terms of psychological deficit: phenomena are emergent when we lack the capacity to trace through and model their causal structures using our cognitive schemas. I conclude by developing these ideas into a preliminary and partial account of explanation and understanding. This aspires to cover the significant fraction of work in molecular and cell biology that correlates biological structures, processes and functions by visualizing phenomena and making them imaginable.

The purpose of this study was to identify the relationship between attachment and emotion understanding in preschoolers. Data was collected from 16 preschool children and their mothers recruited from a private learning center in a downtown metropolitan area. Attachment was measured by use of the Attachment Q-sort, 3.0 (Waters, 1995), while emotion understanding was assessed through use of Denham's (1986) affective perspective-taking task and interviews of children concerning naturally occurring emotions and emotion causes (Fabes et al., 1991). Results included a significant correlation (p < .05) between secure attachment and preschooler's ability to decipher the cause of another's emotion; however, a significant correlation was not found between secure attachment and preschooler's perspective-taking ability or ability to name other's emotions. Thus, conclusions about the impact of attachment upon emotion understanding were mixed, and more research on the subject was implicated.

The overall aim of the study is to investigate tutors’ understanding of a competence-based curriculum (CBC) and how they train the student-teachers to implement CBC in actual classroom situations in ordinary level (O-level) secondary schools in Tanzania. The study employed a qualitative research approach informed by the interpretive paradigm. It involved a total of 12 methodology tutors. The tutors were purposively and conveniently selected from four teachers’ colleges in Tanzania that offer the Diploma in Secondary Education. Data were generated through semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and document review methods. Deductive and inductive approaches as well as the hermeneutic phenomenology tradition informed data analysis and interpretations, respectively. The findings, in brief, reveal that in certain respects tutors understand CBC in relatively different ways and thus give it different meanings. Two main understandings with regard to CBC’s meaning and intentions are identified: CBC as an application-oriented curriculum and CBC as an activity-based curriculum. In the former, CBC is understood as a curriculum emphasising the building of learners’ ability to become practical, creative, and applying the skills they receive to solving real problems in daily life and become functional in society. In the latter, CBC is understood as nothing but a curriculum emphasising learning through activities in the classroom. The key difference between the two categories of understanding is that, in the latter category, tutors are less sensitive to applying what is learned beyond classroom and subject contexts. As for reasons for the CBC introduction in Tanzania, five categories of understanding are identified, such as education being too theoretical, coping with global trends, the desire for a creative and independent generation, external influences, and poor academic performance. Interestingly, all tutors held an understanding that the teaching approaches relevant for CBC are learner-centred approaches. Moreover, the findings reveal that tutors’ instructional practices contradicted their understanding of CBC as a curriculum that basically emphasises invisible pedagogic practices. The tutors’ instructional practices could be described as more teacher-centred, theoretical, and maintaining instructions of an authoritarian, rather than a learner-centred character, as the new curricula seem to emphasise. Lecture-dominated instructions characterised by strong framing and classification are the norm. The findings of tutors’ understandings and their instructional practices can be attributed to the various contextual factors coined as administrative, pedagogical, and physical and ecological factors. The results show that contextual cues are possibly more powerful factors to explain tutors’ instructional practices and they may thus need to be accorded due attention. The tutors proposed some conditions to establish a long-term framework for tutor learning to support educational change. The tutors’ ideas are theorized in a framework constituting a combination of such conditions as reflection, community, conceptual inputs, action, and an institution dealing with education change. / Abstract (svenska) Avhandlingens övergripande syfte är att undersöka hur lärarutbildare uppfattar en kompetensbaserad läroplan (competence-based curriculum, CBC) och hur de utbildar sina lärarkandidater att realisera den i klassrumssituationer i grundskolan i Tanzania. I avhandlingen användes en kvalitativ forskningsansats grundad i ett tolkande paradigm.  Den omfattar totalt 12 metodiklärare. Urvalet av lärarutbildare gjordes medvetet från fyra lärarhögskolor i Tanzania som erbjuder ämneslärarexamen. Data genererades genom semistrukturerade intervjuer, klassrumsobservationer och metoder för dokumentgranskning. Deduktiva och induktiva tillvägagångssätt tillsammans med traditionell hermeneutisk fenomenologi har legat till grund för analys och tolkning.   Resultatet visar att lärarutbildarna i vissa avseenden skiljer sig åt i sina uppfattningar om CBC och att deras tolkning av dess innebörd skiftar. Två huvudsakliga uppfattningar om meningen och avsikterna med CBC har identifierats: dels CBC som tillämpningsinriktad läroplan, dels CBC som tillämpningsbaserad läroplan.  I den förra uppfattas CBC som en läroplan som betonar uppbyggnaden av studenternas förmåga att arbeta praktiskt och kreativt och att tillämpa de färdigheter de erhållit för att lösa verkliga problem i vardagen och fungera i samhället. Enligt den senare uppfattningen utgör CBC enbart en läroplan som betonar inlärning genom aktiviteter inom klassrummets ram. Den väsentliga skillnaden mellan de två kategorierna är att lärarutbildarna i den senare är mindre mottagliga för att tillämpa vad de lärt sig utanför klassrummets och ämnets kontexter. Vad beträffar motiven för införandet av CBC i Tanzania har fem skäl identifierats, nämligen att: utbildningen är för teoretisk, att den ska anknyta till globala trender, att den strävar efter att forma en kreativ och självständig generation, att den har påverkats utifrån, och att de akademiska prestationerna är för svaga. Intressant nog delade alla lärarutbildare uppfattningen att de undervisningsstrategier som är relevanta för CBC är de som är elevcentrerade. Dessutom visar resultaten att lärarutbildarnas undervisningspraktik motsäger deras uppfattning om CBC som en läroplan som främst betonar en osynlig pedagogisk praktik. Lärarutbildarnas undervisningspraktik kan beskrivas som mer lärarcentrerad och teoretisk med bibehållande av en auktoritativ hållning snarare än den mer elevcentrerade som de nya läroplanerna framhåller.   Normen i lärarutbildarnas praktik utgörs av en undervisning som domineras av föreläsningar inom fastställda ramar och klassifikationer. Slutsatsen beträffande lärarutbildarnas uppfattningar och undervisningspraktik kan tillskrivas olika kontextuella faktorer såsom administrativa, pedagogiska samt fysiska och ekologiska. Kontextuella aspekter förklarar eventuellt en större del av hur lärarutbildarnas undervisningspraktik ser ut, och dessa aspekter bör ges vederbörlig uppmärksamhet. Lärarutbildarna föreslog själva vissa förutsättningar för att upprätta långsiktiga ramar till stöd för deras eget lärande om att stödja förändringar i utbildningen.  Uppfattningarna hos lärarutbildarna har teoretiserats inom en ram som utgör en kombination av förutsättningar som reflektion, gemenskap, begreppstillskott, handlande, samt en organisation som kan handskas med förändringar i utbildningen.

Einleitung Immer höhere Anforderungen an die Interdisziplinarität der virtuellen Produktentwicklung (VPE) erfordern qualifizierte Produktmodelle, die eine vollständige Integration und Verknüpfung aller relevanten Teilprozesse absichern. Gleichzeitig soll dabei für den Anwender das Produktverständnis, wie auch die Qualität des Produktes und des Prozesses erhöht werden. Eine Folge daraus sind kurze Innovationszyklen und eine Erhöhung der Transparenz des Prozesses. Die Anwendung numerischer Simulationsmethoden hat sich als dritter essentieller Bestandteil neben Konstruktion und Versuch in der VPE etabliert (Pährisch et al. 2012). Eine Absicherung durch virtuelle Prototypen in einer frühen Konzeptphase unterstützt dabei den Konstruktionsprozess. Ein Nachteil ist, dass die Verwendung virtueller Prototypen noch unzureichend in die übrigen Prozessschritte integriert und damit eine Sensibilisierung für eine vorausschauende Modellerzeugung noch nicht vorhanden ist. Ebenso ergab eine Studie, dass Berechnungsingenieure durchschnittlich 50% ihrer Arbeitszeit auf Datenbeschaffung verwenden müssen und nur jeweils 10% auf die Modellaufbereitung (Sendler et al. 2011). Dies liegt u. a. an der sog. Kommunikationsbarriere zwischen der Konstruktion und Simulation beschreibt. Eine Lösung dazu ist eine tiefergehende Integration dieser beiden Disziplinen in ein Produktmodell. Ein Lösungsansatz ist die Durchführung konstruktionsbegleitender Simulationen. Diese können mit in CAD-Systemen integrierten Simulationsmodulen durchgeführt werden. Die Integrationstiefe der gegebenen Verknüpfungen ist allerdings meist sehr gering. Dieser Beitrag befasst sich mit Techniken, welche einen systematischen Aufbau eines simulationsorientierten Produktmodells absichern. Umgesetzt wird dies durch die Verwendung simulationsgerechter Komponenten, Feature und Analysen. Diese unterstützen eine automatisierte Modelltransformation im CAD-Prozess, an der Schnittstelle von Konstruktion und Simulation. Damit wird die Prozesskette Konstruktion-Simulation verkürzt. Ebenso werden auch durch die Integration tiefgehender Inferenzmechanismen fortgeschrittene Simulationstechniken, wie auch die Definition und Informationsübergabe von Rand- und Lastbedingungen und weiteren Details auf höherer Instanz ermöglicht.

In order for autonomous vehicles to achieve life-long operation in outdoor environments, navigation systems must be able to cope with visual change---whether it's short term, such as variable lighting or weather conditions, or long term, such as different seasons. As a GPS is not always reliable, autonomous vehicles must be self sufficient with onboard sensors. This thesis examines the problem of localisation against a known map across extreme lighting and weather conditions using only a stereo camera as the primary sensor. The method presented departs from traditional techniques that blindly apply out-of-the-box interest-point detectors to all images of all places. This naive approach fails to take into account any prior knowledge that exists about the environment in which the robot is operating. Furthermore, the point-feature approach often fails when there are dramatic appearance changes, as associating low-level features such as corners or edges is extremely difficult and sometimes not possible. By leveraging knowledge of prior appearance, this thesis presents an unsupervised method for learning a set of distinctive and stable (i.e., stable under appearance changes) feature detectors that are unique to a specific place in the environment. In other words, we learn place-dependent feature detectors that enable vastly superior performance in terms of robustness in exchange for a reduced, but tolerable metric precision. By folding in a method for masking distracting objects in dynamic environments and examining a simple model for external illuminates, such as the sun, this thesis presents a robust localisation system that is able to achieve metric estimates from night-today or summer-to-winter conditions. Results are presented from various locations in the UK, including the Begbroke Science Park, Woodstock, Oxford, and central London.

New view synthesis (NVS) is the problem of generating a novel image of a scene, given a set of calibrated input images of the scene, i.e. their viewpoints, and also that of the output image, are known. The problem is generally ill-posed---a large number of scenes can generate a given set of images, therefore there may be many equally likely (given the input data) output views. Some of these views will look less natural to a human observer than others, so prior knowledge of natural scenes is required to ensure that the result is visually plausible. The aim of this thesis is to compare and improve upon the various Markov random field} and conditional random field prior models, and their associated maximum a posteriori optimization frameworks, that are currently the state of the art for NVS and stereo (itself a means to NVS). A hierarchical example-based image prior is introduced which, when combined with a multi-resolution framework, accelerates inference by an order of magnitude, whilst also improving the quality of rendering. A parametric image prior is tested using a number of novel discrete optimization algorithms. This general prior is found to be less well suited to the NVS problem than sequence-specific priors, generating two forms of undesirable artifact, which are discussed. A novel pairwise clique image prior is developed, allowing inference using powerful optimizers. The prior is shown to perform better than a range of other pairwise image priors, distinguishing as it does between natural and artificial texture discontinuities. A dense stereo algorithm with geometrical occlusion model is converted to the task of NVS. In doing so, a number of challenges are novelly addressed; in particular, the new pairwise image prior is employed to align depth discontinuities with genuine texture edges in the output image. The resulting joint prior over smoothness and texture is shown to produce cutting edge rendering performance. Finally, a powerful new inference framework for stereo that allows the tractable optimization of second order smoothness priors is introduced. The second order priors are shown to improve reconstruction over first order priors in a number of situations.

Accurate and robust localisation is a fundamental aspect of any autonomous mobile robot. However, if these are to become widespread, it must also be available at low-cost. In this thesis, we develop a new approach to localisation using monocular cameras by leveraging a coloured 3D pointcloud prior of the environment, captured previously by a survey vehicle. We make no assumptions about the external conditions during the robot's traversal relative to those experienced by the survey vehicle, nor do we make any assumptions about their relative sensor configurations. Our method uses no extracted image features. Instead, it explicitly optimises for the pose which harmonises the information, in a Shannon sense, about the appearance of the scene from the captured images conditioned on the pose, with that of the prior. We use as our objective the Normalised Information Distance (NID), a true metric for information, and demonstrate as a consequence the robustness of our localisation formulation to illumination changes, occlusions and colourspace transformations. We present how, by construction of the joint distribution of the appearance of the scene from the prior and the live imagery, the gradients of the NID can be computed and how these can be used to efficiently solve our formulation using Quasi-Newton methods. In order to reliably identify any localisation failures, we present a new classifier using the local shape of the NID about the candidate pose and demonstrate the performance gains of the complete system from its use. Finally, we detail the development of a real-time capable implementation of our approach using commodity GPUs and demonstrate that it outperforms a high-grade, commercial GPS-aided INS on 57km of driving in central Oxford, over a range of different conditions, times of day and year.

Uncertainty in the sizing of breast cancer masses is a major issue in breast screening programs, as there is a tendency to severely underestimate the sizing of malignant masses, especially with ultrasound imaging as part of the standard triple assessment. Due to this issue about 20% of all surgically treated women have to undergo a second resection, therefore the aim of this thesis is to address this issue by developing novel image analysis methods. Ultrasound elasticity imaging has been proven to have a better ability to differentiate soft tissues compared to standard B-mode. Thus a novel segmentation algorithm is presented, employing elasticity imaging to improve the sizing of malignant breast masses in ultrasound. The main contributions of this work are the introduction of a novel filtering technique to significantly improve the quality of the B-mode image, the development of a segmentation algorithm and their application to an ongoing clinical trial. Due to the limitations of the employed ultrasound device, the development of a method to improve the contrast and signal to noise ratio of B-mode images was required. Thus, an autoregressive model based filter on the radio-frequency signal is presented which is able to reduce the misclassification error on a phantom by up to 90% compared to the employed device, achieving similar results to a state-of-the art ultrasound system. By combining the output of this filter with elasticity data into a region based segmentation framework, a computationally highly efficient segmentation algorithm using Graph-cuts is presented. This method is shown to successfully and reliably segment objects on which previous highly cited methods have failed. Employing this method on 18 cases from a clinical trial, it is shown that the mean absolute error is reduced by 2 mm, and the bias of the B-Mode sizing to underestimate the size was overcome. Furthermore, the ability to detect widespread DCIS is demonstrated.