The arrival of the Internet and the World Wide Web has had a radical impact on commerce and people’s ability to interact virtually. Through these channels various new methods of earning income have been created. Income earned virtually creates a new type of commerce not previously envisioned whilst the South African Income Tax Act was drawn up. The revenue earned is, however. encompassed in the Act. South African residents have as a result entered the taxation net of the South African Revenue Services without understanding the full implications of being taxed. Of particular importance are the deductions available to residents whose incomes are earned through virtual worlds. The various deductions available in the South African Income Tax Act do not specifically deal with the expenses incurred in the production of virtual world income. South Africans are thus exposed to taxation implications not fully explored by the South African Revenue Services nor the general public. The public needs guidance on this matter and the South African Revenue Services needs further research to be conducted in this area. The study revealed that deductions would be allowed against taxable income earned through conducting virtual world commerce. The general deduction formula should be applied to all expenses. Capital expenses should be researched further, for application in terms of the Act. However, it appears that the Act can be applied to non- capital expenses incurred for trading in virtual worlds. AFRIKAANS : Die aankoms van die Internet en die Wêreldwye Web het reeds ‘n geweldige impak op die handle en mense se vermoëns om virtueel in wisselwerking te wees. Deur middle van hierdie kanale het verskeie nuwe metodes onstaan om ‘n inkomste te verdien. ‘n Inkomste wat virtueel verdien word, skep ‘n nuwe sort handle waarvoor daar geen voorsiening gemaak is toe die Inkomste Belastingswetgewing opgestel is. Die inkomste wat verdien word is wel binne die bestek van die Wetgewing. Suid-Afrikaanse inwoners val dus binne die belastingsnet van die Suid-Afrikaanse Inkomste Dienste sonder om die volle implikasies van die belasting te begryp. Van besondere belang is die belastingsaftrekkings wat vir inwoners, wie se inkomste in die virtuele wêreld verdien word, beskikbaar is. Die verskeie aftrekkings beskikbaar in die Suid-Afrikaanse Inkomste Belastingswetgewing maak nie spesifiek voorsiening vir die uitgawes wat aangegaan word terwyl ‘n inkomste in die virtuele wêreld verdien word nie. Suid Afrikaners word duw aan belastingsgevolge blootgestel wat nie ten volle deur die Suid-Afrikaanse Inkomste Dienste, of die algemene publiek verken is nie. Die publiek het leiding in die opsig nodig en die Suid-Afrikaanse Inkomste Dienste benodig verdere navorsing in die verband. Die studie toon dat aftrekkings toegelaat sou word teen belasbare inkomste wat verdien word, deur handel in die virtuele wêreld te dryf. ‘n Algemene formule moet op alle uigawes toegepas word. Kapitale uitgawes moet verder nagevors word vir toepassing op die Wetgewing. Nieteenstaande, wil dit voorkom dat die Wetgewing op nie-kapitale uitgawes wat in die proses van handel dryf in die virtuele wêreld, toegepas kan word. Copyright 2011, University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. Please cite as follows: Moodley, T 2011, A critical analysis of the tax deductibility of expenses incurred in virtual worlds by the South African taxpayer, MCom dissertation, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd < http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-03092012-112031 / > F12/4/163/gm / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Taxation / unrestricted

Ses principaux lecteurs n’ont cessé de concevoir le Haut Livre du Graal comme un roman des confins de la barbarie. L’éclatement des cadres de l’écriture arthurienne est prégnant dans ses épisodes les plus emblématiques, qui révèlent un hiatus irréductible entre une « haute écriture » et l’exaltation de la matérialité des êtres. Le roman semble soumis à une double postulation vers le haut et le bas, vers les convulsions du monde sublunaire et une mystique aussi présente que ténue. L’étude des manifestations et senefiances de la mort s’applique à saisir l’écriture de cet entre-deux, tout en privilégiant l’approfondissement de deux traits majeurs : la dimension visuelle inhérente à la représentation de la mort et les procédés d’écriture propres à esquisser les linéaments d’une « écriture funèbre ». Le paradigme visuel relaie la puissance évocatoire des morts narrées, tandis que la dominante funeste du récit semble être l’un des gages les plus viables de l’unité d’une œuvre dont les structures narratives se dérobent. Le parcours herméneutique de cette étude considère tout d’abord le vocabulaire de la mort, avant d’aborder les circonstances de l’instant mortel, les deux versants spirituel et temporel de la mort, et le lien toujours puissant qui unit les vivants et les morts. Après des considérations à la fois stylistiques, rhétoriques, historiques et anthropologiques, la deuxième partie déplace vers le champ de la poétique du texte la problématique d’une mort fondamentalement ubiquitaire. / The main scholars always depicted the High Book of the Grail as a novel which borders on barbarism. The bursting of the frames of arthurian writing is significant in its most iconic episodes as well, which reveal a huge gap between "High Scripture" and a glorification of the materiality of beings. The novel seems based on a double postulation up and down, towards materiality and spirituality. The study of events and senefiances of death applies to grasp the writing of in-between, while emphasizing the study of two major elements: the inherent visual dimension to the representation of death and methods of its own writing which sketches the outlines of a "funeral writing." Visual paradigm relays the evocative power of the dead narrated while that fateful dominant narrative seems to be one of the most efficient guarantee of the unit of a work whose structure is relevent to illusion or arcana. The hermeneutic thought process of this study considers at first the vocabulary of death, before addressing the circumstances of the "instant mortel", the two spiritual and temporal sides of death, the always powerful unity of the living and the dead. After some stylistic considerations, as well as rhetorical, historical and anthropological ones, the last chapters move to the field of poetics, in a world where death appears fundamentally ubiquitous.

Why do organizations adopt information systems? Is it just because of financial reasons, of concerns for efficiency? Or is it due to external pressures, such as competitor pressure, that an organization adopts an information system? And, how does the adoption take place? Is it a linear process, or is the process one of  conflicts? Does a specific person govern this process, or do we have multiple parties involved? What happens if these conflicts occur among those involved? How does the organization move on and achieve a successful information system adoption? By investigating two organizations, one international academic journal and one South American manufacturing company, this thesis aims to investigate the whys and hows of information system adoption, and aims to contribute to the discourse on information system adoptions in small organizations – an often underrepresented segment in information system adoption literature. By adopting different theoretical lenses throughout the five research papers included, this body of work suggests that even when seemingly simple, information system adoptions can become rather complex. The cases reveal that the role of information systems and issues related to information system adoptions are often not well thought-out in the early days of the organization. The actors’ understandings of adoption and consequences mature and the information systems become more intertwined. Common use of stakeholder theory introduces general stakeholders and their interaction with the focal organization. The cases reveal that the adoption process involves multiple actors, even within what would initially appear as a stakeholder, and that those actors can be in conflict with each other. These conflicts often lead to negotiations, and the cases reveal that these negotiations are opportunities of learning; the actors engage with the information system and with each other, gaining new knowledge about the issues at hand. The dissertation argues that there are various social worlds in information system adoptions, and various factors – ranging from organizational structure to social norms – that often affect why and how the organization undergoes an adoption process. The multiple power relations and divergent interests of stakeholders in these adoption processes, and how information systems affect other parts of the organization, reinforce the need for a well thought-out, flexible and reflexive approach to information system adoptions.

Les arguments de concevabilité sont des arguments philosophiques reposant sur le principe selon lequel tout ce qui est concevable est possible. Cette thèse se propose d'évaluer à un niveau général cette forme d'argumentation en s'appuyant sur des exemples historiques et contemporains. les arguments de concevabilité, quelle que soit la position philosophique qu'ils visent à défendre, soulèvent en effet des difficultés qui leur sont communes et ont trait principalement (i) à la définition de la notion de possibilitée, (ii) à la définition de la notion de concevabilité, et (iii) à la légitimité de l'inférence allant de l'une à l'autre. Le travail consiste d'abord (chapitres 1-3) à construire la catégorie que constituent les arguments de concevabilité en spécifiant notamment le genre de thèses philosophiques qu'ils peuvent chercher à établir. Une fois précisés les objectifs que les arguments de concevabilité peuvent viser, il s'engage (chapitres 4-8) dans l'examen de savoir si les ressources fournies par Ia concevabilité et l'inférence menant du concevable vers le possible suffisent à les atteindre. Pour ce faire, le travail propose une analyse détaillée des différentes formes de possibilité (chapitres 4-5) et de concevabilité (chapitres 6-8) impliquées dans ces arguments. II aboutit à une position dite sceptique modérée au sujet de la validité de cette forme d'argumentation, sur la base de la démonstration que, pour les thèses philosophiques qui nécessitent l'etablissement d'une possibilité métaphysique, la concevabilitée s'avère être un guide insuffisamment fiable, quelle que soit la manière dont on comprend la concevabilité. Mais il défend aussi l'idée que le fait que les arguments de concevabilité ne soient pas toujours concluants n'implique pas qu'ils sont depourvus d'utilité argumentative: car ils nous obligent à clarifier les implications modales de nos conceptions philosophiques et la manière dont nous pouvons raisonner au sujet de ces implications. Cette conception des arguments de concevabilité est appliquée pour finir à la clarification d'un chapitre essentiel de la philosophie de la cognition contemporaine relatif à la possibilité de fournir une explication naturaliste (physicaliste) de la conscience phénoménale, et ou un argument de concevabilité qui a fait couler beaucoup d'encre, dit argument des zombis, joue un rôle essentiel. / Conceivability arguments are philosophical arguments which rely crucially on the principle according to which conceivability entails possibility. This dissertation provides an analysis and a critical assessment of this kind of argumentative strategy, on the basis of contemporary and historical examples. Various possible explanations of the notion of conceivability are considered and it is argued that the inference from conceivability to possibility does not enable conceivability arguments to reach all their intended conclusions, especially those pertaining to substantial metaphysical issues.

As a consequence of the burgeoning awareness about the degree to which communication and information technologies transformed democratic deliberation, political struggles over disinformation ensued in a number of countries. This master’s Degree Project focuses on the politics of falsehood to answer the following question: to which degree does the theory on post-truth worlds (PTW) explain the main themes articulated by legislators and platform representatives at parliamentary hearings about disinformation in comparison to a MCD-inspired perspective defined as ICT3D? The theoretical framework explains the main concepts in PTW (Farkas &amp; Shou, 2020) and ICT3D, which is defined by this DP as the contentious field concerning the mediation of collective affairs by the intersection of deliberation systems, data politics and development dimensions within and across societies worldwide. The empirical section presents a thematic content analysis of three study cases that are used to compare both approaches, consisting of 15 parliamentary inquiries of digital platforms in the United States, the United Kingdom and Brazil within the context of right-wing ruling between 2017 and 2020. The results confirm the relevance of PTW as an interpretative key to the meta-deliberation between legislators and platform representatives, but also identify many contents that either go beyond the scope of PTW or present nuances and tensions within PTW-related codes. The findings also provide a number of conclusions on the potential of ICT3D as a theoretical approach: the contentious intertwining of data politics, deliberative systems and development dimensions was demonstrated to be present in meta-deliberation; the wide array of development dimensions raised in all cases shows the pertinence of ICT3D to Comdev; and ICT3D has also proven to be of value in demonstrating the absence of certain themes and contents that should be expected in meta-deliberation from a critical perspective. The discussion elaborates on the explanatory potential and limits of PTW and ICT3D, concluding that they operate at different levels: PTW are specific discursive formations - among others - that articulate themes and contents about ICT3D.

Les mondes virtuels multi-joueurs sont des jeux à trois dimensions. Leurs utilisateurs s’adonnent depuis plusieurs années à plusieurs activités en se transférant des objets virtuels créés ou achetés dans les mondes virtuels dont ils revendiquent la propriété. Ces objets appelés «biens virtuels» n’ont d’existence qu’en ligne et peuvent prendre n’importe quelle forme (avatars, vaisseaux spatiaux, etc.). Bien que le marché des transactions de biens virtuels représente un important impact économique, social et juridique sur l’ensemble de la consommation, ces «biens» ne sont pourtant pas juridiquement reconnus, ni protégés par la loi ou par la jurisprudence en Amérique du Nord et en Europe, seuls les contrats de licence rédigés par les développeurs régissent leurs utilisations. Or, les conflits dans ce domaine peuvent devenir très complexes, car les rencontres virtuelles donnent lieu à une grande variété d’activités et sont créatrices de liens de droit entre des internautes qui peuvent se trouver physiquement à l’autre bout de la planète pour se rencontrer virtuellement dans l’environnement du cyberespace. Ainsi, les effets dommageables de ces activités vont se manifester en dehors du réseau. Puisque dans ces cas, l’espace virtuel et l'espace matériel sont interconnectés, on se pose la question suivante : quelle est la loi applicable aux transferts de "biens virtuels"? Pour traiter d’une question litigieuse en droit international privé, il faut passer par l’étape préalable de la qualification juridique de l’objet du litige, ici les biens virtuels, afin d’être en mesure de le rattacher à un régime juridique et à la règle de conflit applicable selon ce régime. Les biens virtuels, immatériels par essence, n’existent pas réellement. Techniquement parlant ce sont des représentations graphiques de codes sources enregistrés dans le logiciel du monde virtuel. Ainsi, l’existence juridique de l’objet virtuel en tant que «bien» est controversée en droit civil, car elle dépend de la conception stricte (traditionnelle) ou élargie (moderne) que l’on adopte du droit de propriété. En admettant que les biens virtuels soient reconnus en droit des biens, les règles de conflits de lois applicables à cette matière portent beaucoup d’importance sur la situation matérielle du bien pour la localisation du rapport de droits, ce qui rend très difficile la recherche de solution des conflits de lois dans notre matière. Ainsi, l’application du principe de l’autonomie tend à s’élargir aux questions de droits réels, mais cette solution n’est pas satisfaisante pour les tiers. Dès lors, il convient de se rallier à la doctrine contemporaine qui critique la référence générale à la règle de rattachement localisatrice dans des situations nouvelles et spécifiques empreintes de difficultés de localisation afin d’appliquer préférablement le régime de propriété intellectuelle, adoptée spécifiquement pour les biens immatériels. L’application de la loi sur les droits d’auteur est plus adaptée aux biens virtuels en tant qu’oeuvre de l’esprit, parce que les droits ne se trouvent pas limités par l’inexistence de cet objet et parce que les règles de conflits propres au droit d’auteur d’origine conventionnelle permettent une protection internationale du droit d’auteur. / Multi-player virtual worlds are three-dimensional games. Over the past few years, players have been engaging in various activities involving the transfer of virtual objects that they have themselves created or purchased in these virtual worlds and over which they claim ownership. The objects, called “virtual goods”, exist only in the online world and may take any number of forms (e.g. avatars, space ships, etc.). Although the market for virtual property has important economic, social and legal impacts on consumption, these “goods” are neither recognized by the law, nor protected by North American or European legislation or jurisprudence; only the licensing contracts drafted by the developers regulate their uses. However, conflicts that arise in this domain may grow very complex since virtual interactions give rise to a great variety of activities and create legal relationships between the cybernauts who meet in the virtual environment of cyberspace although they may bephysically located on either ends of the planet. Thus, the adverse effects of these activities may manifest themselves outside of the cyber environment. Since the virtual world and the physical world are interconnected in these cases, we have to ask the following question : what law should apply to the transfer of the “virtual goods”In order to answer contentious questions that arise under private international law, one must first go through the initial step of juridically qualifying the objects in question, here the virtual goods, in order to be able to assign them to a specific legal regime and to the specific conflict of laws rules that apply under that regime. Virtual goods – inherently immaterial – do not really exist:they are graphic representations of source code embedded in the software of the virtual world. Thus, the legal characterization of the virtual objects as “property” is controversial under civil law because it depends on whether one adopts a strict (traditional) concept of property law or a more expansive (modern) concept. Even if virtual goods were to be recognized under property law, since the conflict of laws rules applicable to property law place a lot of importance on the physical location of the property in order to determine the legal attachment, this renders the search for a solution to the conflict of laws in this area very difficult. Application of the principleof contractual autonomy therefore provides greater scope in determining property rights, butthis solution may not be satisfactory to third parties. Thus, it is useful to turn to the contemporary doctrine that criticizes the general application of the rule of physical attachment to particular and novel contexts that present difficulties in determining the location of the property and instead applies the intellectual property regime which is specifically designed to deal with incorporeal goods. Copyright law is better suited to virtual goods as creations of the mind since its application is not hampered by the non-existence of the goods and because the conflict of laws rules applicable to traditional copyright lawprovide international protection for copyrights.

Mêlant des approches historiques, socio-anthropologiques et artistiques, la thèse entend apporter un éclairage inédit sur la situation contemporaine de la Palestine et les modalités de l’occupation, à travers l’analyse de ses mondes de l’art contemporain depuis les années 1990 qui ont vu un développement sans précédent de son infrastructure. Dans un contexte de fragmentation politique et territoriale toujours plus accrue, une nouvelle génération d’artistes a émergé qui parvient progressivement à transgresser les contraintes à l’œuvre sur le terrain, pour accéder par leurs pratiques artistiques et les visions du monde qui en découlent, aux scènes de l’art contemporain international. À travers une étude ethnographique multisituée, la thèse a pour objectif de retracer la fabrique de cet art contemporain, en se concentrant sur l’étude des artistes plasticiens des Territoires palestiniens occupés. Il s’agit d’observer leurs pratiques quotidiennes, les facteurs qui les entravent tout comme les nouvelles fenêtres d’opportunités et circulations induites par le marché de l’art globalisé. En partant des trajectoires individuelles de ces créateurs en mouvement, la recherche s’interroge sur les formes de rupture ou de continuités engendrées par la mondialisation que ce soit dans leurs modalités d’engagement (artistique et politique) ou dans leur rapport au nationalisme et ce, afin de repenser les rapports entre art et politique. / Combining historical, socio-anthropological and artistic approaches, the thesis aims to shed new light on the contemporary situation of Palestine and the modes of Occupation, through the analysis of its worlds of contemporary art since the 1990s which have seen an unprecedented development of its infrastructure. In a context of growing political and territorial fragmentation, a new generation of artists has emerged which gradually succeeds in transgressing the constraints at work on the ground, to access through their artistic practices and the resulting worldviews, to the scenes of international contemporary art.Through a multilocated ethnographic study, the thesis aims to retrace the fabrication of this contemporary art, focusing on the study of plastic artists from the Occupied Palestinian Territories. It is a question of observing their daily practices, the factors that hinder them as well as the new windows of opportunities and circulations induced by the globalized art market. Starting from the individual paths of these moving creators, the research questions the forms of rupture or continuities engendered by globalization whether in their modes of engagement (artistic and political) or in their relationship towards nationalism, in order to rethink the relationship between art and politics.

Der Work Space ist ein Teil eines vom BMBF-Projekt Lehrraum_digital initiierten Kommunikationsraums mit dem Ziel unterschiedliche Experten und Akteure in die Diskussion einzubeziehen. Thema sind digitalisierte Lehr- und Lernumgebungen im Kontext der Anforderungen durch die Industrie 4.0. Der Work Space bietet eine allen Teilnehmenden der GeNeMe offenstehende Feedback- und Beteiligungsmöglichkeit an der Diskussion zur Gestaltung digitaler Wissensräume und Lernwelten.

The thesis derives from my bachelor thesis "The Motif of Dream in Selected Czech 19th century Fiction (Zeyer - Mácha - Erben)", which is focused on dreams in fiction literature, mostly on selected Czech authors of the 19th century. This diploma thesis will be devoted to Jakub Arbes and Svatopluk Čech, Czech authors of the second half of the 19th century. In the titles selected, the accent will be put on the importance of the motif of dream and the possibilities of their usage in the plot. The thesis will also consider the diversity and concepts of the literary motif in question. This work should be comparative (in the international sense), and will also consider both the common and the variating elements of dreams in chosen literary texts. Attention will be paid to the analysis of dreams, the activity of dreaming itself and the symbols used. The entire work will be based on traditional concepts of dream in psychology and psychoanalysis (Carl Gustav Jung, Sigmund Freud), but also will keep in mind the fictional nature of literary "dreams". Due to that, it will also stem from the so-called fictional worlds theory, which is in current naratology described eg. in the book "How to Do Fiction with Words" by Jiří Koten.

The Cremator: The Fetish as The Denial of Life and The Adoration of Death Summary The object of interest in the semiotic analysis of the literary work "The Cremator" by the Czech writer Ladislav Fuks are primarily the motifs of fetishism and the cult of death. This framework is examined in the relation to the specific "new" language of masochism and in the relation to the aphasic language disorder related to metonymy. The utterance of the main character Karl Kopfrkingel intermingles with the way he thinks and consequently acts, as he duplicates through his language a fictional world and obscures it with the fetishized descriptions adoring the death. In this case, the masochism is not manifested in a sexuality (as in the case with Masoch), but on the ethno-social level related to the personal myth crisis and the subsequent transformation of Kopfringel and the related environment of the fictional world. These aspects become to a murdering urges in the context of ethnic affiliation, which has become to an obstacle and the settlement with it demands the establishment of a new order. Keywords Ladislav Fuks, The Cremator, aphasia, metonymy, metaphor, fetishism, fiction worlds, identity, masochism, sadism