This thesis examines the evolving relationship between protected landscapes and the corporate through the lens of tourism in US national parks, with Yosemite National Park as the empirical case study. It provides an understanding of how protected landscapes are managed by examining wise-use, its connection to responsible actions and sustainable development, and the role ‘corporate natures’ have within this management process - framed around corporate social and environmental responsibility (CSR). This work is concerned with how wise-use is employed alongside the national park priorities of protection and access, so as to understand why private capital is invested in public lands to maintain public good. Such investment is examined through the role of the corporate, to show how making landscape dollarable, its commodification through tourism [visitation and access] has actually provided a safety net and enhanced protection, rather than being the antithesis to it. Tourism has not only created landscapes of economic value but also ones of social and cultural value, places that people connect with and appreciate through an identity of both place and feeling. The main findings of this thesis are that wise-use and corporate actions have evolved and are driven by a new process of CSR, representing corporate social resilience. This new process of CSR is determined by the inclusion of all relevant stakeholders, and advances adaptive co-management, offering a more robust process than the subjective and voluntary ideals of responsibility. This thesis approaches this work through a qualitative empirical study undertaken through archival research, literature reviews and research in the field at Yosemite National Park, which included documentary analysis, interviews and meetings with the main stakeholders in commercial and governance activity. This research forms an important and valuable contribution to environmental management strategies, not only for tourism but also a wider audience.

abstract: Advances in data collection technologies have made it cost-effective to obtain heterogeneous data from multiple data sources. Very often, the data are of very high dimension and feature selection is preferred in order to reduce noise, save computational cost and learn interpretable models. Due to the multi-modality nature of heterogeneous data, it is interesting to design efficient machine learning models that are capable of performing variable selection and feature group (data source) selection simultaneously (a.k.a bi-level selection). In this thesis, I carry out research along this direction with a particular focus on designing efficient optimization algorithms. I start with a unified bi-level learning model that contains several existing feature selection models as special cases. Then the proposed model is further extended to tackle the block-wise missing data, one of the major challenges in the diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Moreover, I propose a novel interpretable sparse group feature selection model that greatly facilitates the procedure of parameter tuning and model selection. Last but not least, I show that by solving the sparse group hard thresholding problem directly, the sparse group feature selection model can be further improved in terms of both algorithmic complexity and efficiency. Promising results are demonstrated in the extensive evaluation on multiple real-world data sets. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Computer Science 2014

La présente thèse est consacrée au recalage et à la fusion d’images de façon dense et déformable via des méthodes d’optimisation discrète. La contribution majeure consiste en un principe de couplage entre recalage géométrique et iconique via l’utilisation de méthodes dites graphiques. Une telle formulation peut être obtenue à partir d’un Champ de Markov Aléatoire binaire et permet de résoudre les deux problèmes simultanément tout en imposant une cohérence à leurs solutions respectives. La méthodologie s’applique à la fusion de paires d’images (dans ses versions symétrique et asymétrique), ainsi qu’au recalage simultané de groupes d’images nécessaire à l’étude de populations. Les qualités principales de notre approche résident dans sa faible complexité algorithmique et sa versatilité. L’utilisation d’une formulation discrète assure une grande modularité concernant tant la mesure de similarité iconique que l’extraction et l’association de points d’intérêt. Les résultats prometteurs obtenus sur les bases de données de référence en flot optique et sur des données médicales tridimensionnelles démontrent tout le potentiel de notre méthodologie / This thesis is devoted to dense deformable image registration/fusion using discrete methods. The main contribution of the thesis is a principled registration framework coupling iconic/geometric information through graph-based techniques. Such a formulation is derived from a pair-wise MRF view-point and solves both problems simultaneously while imposing consistency on their respective solutions. The proposed framework was used to cope with pair-wise image fusion (symmetric and asymmetric variants are proposed) as well as group-wise registration for population modeling. The main qualities of our framework lie in its computational efficiency and versatility. The discrete nature of the formulation renders the framework modular in terms of iconic similarity measures as well as landmark extraction and association techniques. Promising results using a standard benchmark database in optical flow estimation and 3D medical data demonstrate the potentials of our methods.

[pt] A pergunta sobre o sentido da vida sempre foi objeto de pesquisa de muitas ciências, dentre elas a teologia e a filosofia. As religiões sempre apresentaram e apresentam um sentido para a vida humana. Algo semelhante acontece com a Bíblia. A literatura sapiencial bíblica, que queremos analisar de forma mais específica, nasce do desejo do povo israelita de compreender as leis que YHWH colocou no mundo para serem seguidas; ou seja, nasce da procura de resposta para a pergunta sobre o sentido da vida. A presente dissertação quer abordar o livro de Qohélet verificando qual é o sentido que este apresenta para a vida humana. A escolha desse livro se deve à sua localização no contexto da crise da sabedoria em Israel - falamos aqui de crise da sabedoria bíblica que vai do séc. IV ao séc. II aproximadamente, onde está situado também o livro de Jó. O fundamento da sabedoria tradicional israelita era o princípio de causa e efeito que garantia a felicidade dos justos e a infelicidade dos ímpios. A crise da sabedoria acontece justamente pela verificação de falhas nesse princípio. Por outro lado, ainda não existe na tradição de Israel nenhuma perspectiva de recompensa após a morte. Nossa pesquisa terá como ponto de partida o texto de Qoh 9,7-10 que será analisado seguindo os passos do método histórico-crítico. Num primeiro momento procuraremos refletir a respeito do contexto histórico do livro de Qohélet, de como foi abordado em todo esse tempo e de algumas hipóteses a respeito do seu processo de composição. Assim, nossa pesquisa buscará relacionar o texto em questão com o conjunto do livro de Qohélet e responder à seguinte pergunta: qual o sentido da vida para Qohélet? Em seguida procuraremos comparar essa resposta com a resposta dada pela Epopéia de Gilgames e pela filosofia epicurista. / [en] The question on the meaning of life was always object of research of a lot of sciences, among them Theological and Philosophical sciences. The religions have always presented and still present a meaning for the human life. Something alike happens with the Bible. The wise biblical literature, that we want to analyze in a more specific way is born of the desire of the Israeli people of understanding the laws that YHWH placed in the world for us to be followed; in other words, it is derived of the answer search for the question on the meaning of the life. The present dissertation wants to approach the book of Qohélet verifying which it is the meaning of life presented by the book. The choice of this book is due to its location in the context of the wisdom crisis in Israel; we refer to the crisis of the Biblical Wisdom that starts in the IV Century and ends in the II Century aproximately, where it is also placed the book of Jó. The foundation of the Israeli traditional wisdom was the cause and effect principle wich assured the happiness of the fairs and the heretics unhappiness. The crisis of the wisdom occurs exactly due the existence of faults in the cause and effect principle itself. On the other hand, it doesn t still exist in the Israeli tradition any reward perspective after death. Our research will have as starting point the text of Qoh 9,7-10 that will be analyzed following the steps of the historical- critical method. In a first moment we will try to reflect on the historical context of the book of Qohélet, on how it was regarded throughout the times and on some hypotheses regarding its composition process. Therefore, our research will seek to relate the afore mentioned text to the Qohélet book as a hole while trying to provide an answer to the following question: which is the meaning of the life for Qohélet? Subsequently we will try to compare that answer with the answer given by the Epic poem of Gilgames and by the materialistic philosophy.

Masters of Art / West-End Primary is one of more than 100 public schools in South Africa, which since 1994, has greened large parts of its school grounds with a water-wise indigenous and vegetable garden. The South African National Botanical Institute-Environmental Education Unit (SANBI-EEU) is a government agency that has undertaken responsibility for implementing greening projects in partnership with public schools such as West-End Primary. SANBI-EEU encourages and supports the establishment of indigenous and vegetable gardens to facilitate teaching, to support school nutrition programmes and to make possible the employment of unemployed community members.Anecdotal evidence points to local cases where the “caretaker inherits” the greening project because other stakeholders (educators, learners) no longer participate in garden maintenance or because projects are started but cannot be sustained. The review of theory suggests that project sustainability is achieved and ensured through adopting a people-centred, participatory and sustainable approach to development.Hence, participation, capacity and capacity building is important to ensure this.Incorporating these development approaches into programme, project and operations management strengthens the process for achieving and ensuring project sustainability. This study was exploratory and used an empirical research design which combined qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate sustainability factors. The research population comprised Grade 5, 6 and 7 learners, staff and parents/community members at the West-End Primary School.In general the research findings demonstrated that West-End Primary achieved a degree of sustainability after project implementation. The study found that developmental factors such as participation, capacity, capacity building did in part contribute to achieving and ensuring this degree of sustainability. However a year and several months after project implementation, the degree of sustainability achieved was in a fragile state. This fragility was the result of a mix of weakness and strengths in the factors that have contributed to sustaining the greening project.

Background: Much social network analysis in health related research has focused on the impact of social networks in the genesis of long term conditions and associated inequalities. However, there has been little research on the role of social networks in the management of such conditions. This is significant at a time when increasing policy emphasis is placed on individual self-care and assumptions are often made about social support, and familial support in particular. The management of chronic illness is complex involving the interplay of personal and contextual factors and comprised of a number of daily activities which include the ongoing negotiation of management into existing roles and the degree of individual engagement with self-management. Little is known about how these aspects interact to shape and influence management, what constitutes a social network for individuals with long term conditions and whether this changes over time.Methods: This study was embedded within the Whole Systems Informing Self-management Engagement (WISE) randomised control trial. It used a longitudinal qualitative design with initial face to face in-depth interviews, telephone follow-ups over a year and final face-to-face interviews where sociograms were also used to elicit network structure.Results: The findings suggest that who is in the social network, and the types of relationships which are present, influence how management practices are framed and the extent to which they are engaged with. Resources available to an individual through the network support, or undermine, engagement and changed over time. Networks included family, friends, GP, nurses and companion animals. The amalgamation of the different types of relationships that constitute the social networks are characterised by three typologies; the family focused network, the friend focused network and the health care professional focused network. These network types reflected where support was sought in times of crisis. In the absence of 'typical' sources accounts highlighted the substitutability of network members which was often narrowly sought from key individuals. Changes in illness management, either positive or negative, were framed around critical moments as they challenged existing norms of practice and involved significant network members. Further, co-morbid conditions placed an additional complexity to management and priorities were shaped by the recursive relationship with health services which seemingly influences patients' orientation in becoming either active assessors of health care or less engaged through being overwhelmed. Conclusions: This thesis challenges the notion of 'self'-management as an individual construct as many of the practices of illness management involved the support and/or negotiation of roles with others. Critical moments are a key point where normalised management practices are challenged and have particular relevance for future interventions which could foster these critical points to facilitate such changes in routines. Interventions and education need to reflect this wider setting in which chronic illness management occurs for the practices of management to become normalised into everyday routines.

The purpose of this study is to determine what facilities are needed and what changes in the present course of study in physical education of the schools of Wise County must be made in order to carry out an enriched program, functioning for the entire student population. The facilities of the present, the teaching procedure, the administration of physical education, and the latest proposed programs in this field will be considered. It is hoped that a study of this kind will be of value to the curriculum builder in the small or rural schools.

The African Union's Panel of the Wise was inaugurated on 18 December 2007. The prospects of the Panel as a conflict prevention and peace and security promotion tool in the AU Peace and Security architecture may remain dim unless its concept is understood and the Panel is effectively operationalised. To this end therefore, the objectives of this study are as follows: (1) To examine the need for the Panel in the AU Peace and Security Architecture. (2) To examine the institutional design of the Panel. (3) To explore the prospective roles for the Panel in the AU Peace and Security Architecture. (4) To identify how the Panel can promote the internalisation of peace and security in Africa. The study will propose key strategies to improve the relevance of the Panel as a tool of the PSC in facilitating peaceful interventions and promotion of peace and security in Africa. / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2008. / 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 Dr Christopher Mbazira, Faculty of Law, Makarere University, Uganda / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/ / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

Thesis (M.Sc. Agriculture (Agricultural Economics)) -- University of Limpopo, 2019 / Cattle herd productivity in the smallholder sector is generally low in South Africa (Mapiye et al., 2009) with cattle off-take rates being as low as 15% per annum (ARC, 2016). Among the leading causes of reduced productivity in smallholder herds is cattle mortality caused by diseases and parasites, especially ticks (Hesterberg et al., 2007). Ticks and the diseases they transmit have been identified as the major cause of widespread morbidity and mortality in cattle kept by smallholder farmers in the semi-arid areas of South Africa (Dold and Cocks, 2001; Mapiye et al., 2009) which results in poor animal welfare. Access to animal health infrastructure and technology can help reduce the problem of cattle diseases. The study was conducted to examine the impact of ARC’s Infrastructural Facility Scheme on the profitability of cattle farming and perceptions of smallholder cattle farmers. The study had four objectives; (i) to identify and describe the socio-economic characteristics of smallholder cattle farmers in Fetakgomo Municipality and Makhuduthamaga Municipality; (ii) to assess the perception of smallholder cattle farmers on the facilities provided by ARC in the study area; (iii) to determine and analyse the profitability of smallholder cattle farmers in the study area and (iv) to assess the effect of cattle farmers’ socio-economic characteristics on cattle farming profitability in the area. A total of 224 smallholder cattle farmers were interviewed, of which 124 farmers were beneficiaries and 100 were non-beneficiaries. The Purposive Sampling procedure was employed to determine the desired sample size in both the two Municipalities. The results showed that 55% of the smallholder cattle farmers were beneficiaries and 45% of the smallholder cattle farmers were non-beneficiaries out of the sample size. There were more male-headed households of the beneficiaries and more female-headed households of the non-beneficiaries. An analysis of the farmers’ socio-economic characteristics further showed that the majority of the smallholder cattle farmers prefer using family labourers or household labourers in their cattle farming. The results depict that beneficiaries of the Animal Health Wise Project used 76.2% of the family labour and 23.8% of hired labourers for beneficiaries whereas for the non-beneficiaries, it was v 68.7% of the family labour and 31.3% of hired labour. Using family labour helped in minimising costs of labour. Farmers were asked a set of Likert type scale questions about their perceptions on the project. The perception index score revealed that the smallholder cattle farmers had a negative perception of it as the index score was skewed to the left with the value being 0.428. Profitability was measured through Gross Margin Analysis. The Gross Margin Analysis revealed that the mean value of the total revenue and gross margin for the beneficiaries were bigger than non-participants. This was because beneficiaries tend to sell their cattle at a higher price compared to the non-participants. Furthermore, smallholder cattle farmers that are beneficiaries tend to use the infrastructure and through that, their cattle productivity is higher resulting in higher gross margin and total revenue compared to the non-participants. The Multiple Linear Regression Model was used to assess the effect of cattle farmers’ socio-economic characteristic on the gross margin of the farmers in the study area. The results revealed that only 3 variables were significant. The total herd size, project participation and access to the market were significant at 1% and all had a positive effect towards the gross margin. The study suggested that there should be more infrastructural facilities that are built in other municipalities. By so doing, smallholder cattle farmers will use the facilities to improve their herd productivity and also improve their cattle’s health status. It was also recommended that there should be some training based on the use of the cattle infrastructural facilities scheme so that farmers can use the facilities effectively. Key words: Smallholder Cattle Farmers, Perception, Animal Health Wise Project, Infrastructural Facilities. / Center of Collaboration on “Economics of Agricultural Research and Development”

This essay is about women in ancient Egypt and their relation to aging and why they are rarely depicted other than beautiful and young, when it was a possibility for men to be depicted old in ancient Egypt. Looking at the examples in existence of depictions of aging in women, following questions will be discussed. How is a woman with signs of aging depicted and what does these characteristics convey to the viewer? By looking at tomb paintings and statues showing signs of age, these questions will be discussed and put in context in hope of gaining a better understanding of how female age was perceived in ancient Egypt. The main conclusion drawn from this study is that signs of aging in ancient Egypt had a pronounced symbolic value. In addition to this, there is no direct answer why the signs of aging on women were depicted as they were, but there are some speculations why a woman is portrayed older and why she is not.