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Armenian music of today is largely influenced by Armenian folk music. Composers such as Sayat Nova and Gomidas Vartabed have left behind numerous tunes that are still sung today by Armenians whether in Armenia or the Armenian diaspora. This thesis comparatively analyzed piano arrangements of Armenian folk tunes by Armenian composers. The aim of this thesis is bifold: to find elements of piano arrangements that are commonly used by different composers and to introduce the riches of Armenian music to the Czech and International music communities. The comparative analyses revealed the existence of elements such as orchestral simulations, melodic and rhythmic variations, representations, composing introductions, and different accompaniment styles among the arragements of the same folk tunes by different composers or different folk tunes by the same composer at different levels of difficulty. Hence, the first aim of this thesis was verified, with the hopes of the second aim also being met and Armenian music being spread to all musical circles around the world. KEYWORDS Armenian music, folk tunes, arrangements, analysis, composers

M. Comm. / Virtual working arrangements, including telecommuting, are on the increase globally due to the challenges that organisations face in the current global economy. Virtual working arrangements present considerable possible benefits to organisations, employees and the community at large if correctly implemented. It is estimated that 45 million Americans teleworked in 2006 alone (O’Brien & Hayden, 2007) with predictions of the number reaching 100 million in the United States of America by 2010 (Wilsker, 2008). However, in South Africa this organisational form is not well documented or implemented presently. As a result, local organisations are unaware of the employee benefits and challenges that will be faced when implementing a telecommuting programme and how best to implement teleworking arrangements with these factors in mind.

The purpose of this investigation, conceived in its broadest sense, was to study the living arrangements of older persons over a specific period of time in an attempt to arrive at some generalizations about the nature and changes of these arrangements as they relate to certain sociological variables.

Several scholars have identified institutional and regulatory conditions under which Information Communication Technologies (ICT) reforms can accomplish positive public policy outcomes. This literature pays little attention, however, to the role of parliaments in these reforms. The institutional factors determining the degree and nature of parliamentary participation in ICT sector reforms in Africa is what this thesis examines. Drawing from the political economy tradition, this thesis explores the interplay between the executive, the parliament and the various sectoral interests that determine ICT sector reforms in developing countries. It does so by placing parliament in a conceptual framework that combines the concept of ICT as a complex ecosystem with that of a constellation of institutions. The gathered empirical evidence is studied through this conceptual lens to build the cases of parliamentary participation in Kenya and South Africa - two of the most dynamic ICT markets in sub-Saharan Africa - which are then analysed comparatively. Some of the information is gathered through a self-assessment survey by members of the ICT parliamentary committees and complemented by high-level interviews with the main sector players. The findings are triangulated with those from an extensive document analysis. This thesis contextualises institutional analysis in specific political circumstances of the two countries in order to understand the relevance of parliament in sector reforms. The findings have important implications for our understanding of structural and institutional constraints on parliaments in developing countries and nascent democracies. Parliaments lack capacity to simply fulfill their legislative and oversight roles, let alone creating an enabling environment for innovative public policy, sector investment and public interest outcomes as required by this dynamic sector in any modern, globalised economy. Systematic coding of the data revealed national governance and institutional arrangements as key determinants of an ICT ecosystem that adapts to local and international conditions, confirming parliament as not simply a neutral legal structure but a significant power broker, reflecting competing interests at play. The formal legal system in both countries is uneven and underutilized, ineffective in achieving robustly-contested public interest outcomes. In order to manage political interests, parliament structures and serves principal agent-relationships, vetoes ICT policy and decision-making processes, links interest groups to government and party agendas, resolves conflicts and, sometimes, builds consensus among key players. The examination of institutional designs of both parliaments identifies critical capacity deficits that are at the heart of the negative outcomes in national legislative and oversight processes. In South Africa, the reason for these deficits is primarily that the parliamentary system promotes political party and executive dominance, which undermine multi-party and participatory structure of parliamentary processes to achieve party preferences and control outcomes. In Kenya, whilst the combination of distinct separation of powers and a constituency-based electoral system provides a legal basis for greater parliamentary accountability, the highly fragmented sector arrangements compounded by lack of internal capacity to utilize parliamentary instruments and mechanisms constrain parliament's participation. These weak institutional arrangements and designs, in both Kenya and South Africa, limit independence of parliament from the executive and sometimes industry, compromising the parliamentary oversight and visionary leadership expected from specialized portfolio committees. This calls for a transformation of arrangements to uphold and reinforce constitutional mandates that give parliament the power and ability to fulfill its role in policy reforms.

A superpattern is a string of characters of length n that contains as a subsequence, and in a sense that depends on the context, all the smaller strings of length k in a certain class. We prove structural and probabilistic results on superpatterns for preferential arrangements, including (i) a theorem that demonstrates that a string is a superpattern for all preferential arrangements if and only if it is a superpattern for all permutations; and (ii) a result that is reminiscent of a still unresolved conjecture of Alon on the smallest permutation on [n] that contains all k-permutations with high probability.

<p> This thesis deals with combinatorial properties of hyperplane arrangements. In particular, we address a conjecture of Deza, Terlaky and Zinchenko stating that the largest possible average diameter of a bounded cell of a simple hyperplane arrangement is not greater than the dimension. We prove that this conjecture is asymptotically tight in fixed dimension by constructing a family of hyperplane arrangements containing mostly cubical cells. The relationship with a result of Dedieu, Malajovich and Shub, the conjecture of Hirsch, and a result of Haimovich are presented.</p> <p> We give the exact value of the largest possible average diameter for all simple arrangements in dimension two, for arrangements having at most the dimension plus two hyperplanes, and for arrangements having six hyperplanes in dimension three. In dimension three, we strengthen the lower and upper bounds for the largest possible average diameter of a bounded cell of a simple hyperplane arrangements.</p> <p> Namely, let ΔA(n, d) denote the largest possible average diameter of a bounded cell of a simple arrangement defined by n hyperplanes in dimension d. We show that • ΔA(n, 2) = 2[n/2] / (n-1)(n-2) for n ≥ 3, • ΔA(d + 2, d) = 2d/d+1, • ΔA(6, 3) = 2, • 3 - 6/n-1 + 6([n/2]-2) / (n-1)(n-2)(n-3) ≤ ΔA(n, 3) ≤ 3 + 4(2n^2-16n+21) / 3(n-1)(n-2)(n-3) • ΔA (n, d) ≥ 1 + (d-1)(n-d d)+(n-d)(n-d-1) for n ≥ 2d. We also address another conjecture of Deza, Terlaky and Zinchenko stating that the minimum number Φ0A~(n, d) of facets belonging to exactly one bounded cell of a simple arrangement defined by n hyperplanes in dimension d is at least d (n-2 d-1). We show that • Φ0A(n, 2) = 2(n - 1) for n ≥ 4, • Φ0A~(n, 3) ≥ n(n-2)/3 +2 for n ≥ 5. We present theoretical frameworks, including oriented matroids, and computational tools to check by complete enumeration the open conjectures for small instances. Preliminary computational results are given.</p> / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

It is known that any motion of the scene during the exposure of a hologram results in a spatial modulation of the recorded fringe contrast. On reconstruction this produces a spatial amplitude modulation of the reconstructed wavefront that tends to blur out the image. This paper discusses a novel holographic technique that uses an elliptical orientation for the holographic arrangement. It is shown that the degree of image degradation is not only a function of exposure time but also of the system used. The form of the functional system dependence is given, as well as the results of several systems tested, which verify this dependence. It is further demonstrated that the velocity of the target or the exposure time alone is inconsequential by itself and the important parameter is the total motion of the target Î X = VT. Using the resolution of front-surface detail from a target with a velocity of 17,546 cm/sec, we are able to predict an upper limit on target velocity for resolution of front-surface detail for a given system. / Ph. D.

Qui prendra ma terre ? L’Office du Niger, des investissements internationaux aux arrangements fonciers locaux.La crise alimentaire mondiale de 2008 a provoqué un mouvement d’investissements fonciers à grande échelle. En Afrique de l’Ouest, l’Office du Niger (ON) est un cas emblématique des aux investissements fonciers dans l’irrigation. 45 000 exploitations familiales y exploitent 100 000 ha de rizières sur lesquelles ils n’ont jamais obtenu de droits fonciers. Faute de capitaux, l’Etat malien a fait appel aux investisseurs, privés et publics, nationaux et étrangers, pour atteindre l’objectif d’un million d’ha irrigués visé depuis 1932. De nouvelles règles facilitent leur accès à la terre. L’arrivée des investisseurs et les risques d’accaparements ont donné le signal d’une course à la terre où les différents acteurs, investisseurs, paysans, petits et hauts responsables de l’Etat, mettent en oeuvre des arrangements fonciers informels.La thèse montre que ces arrangements ont leurs racines dans l’évolution historique du foncier. Elle analyse le développement des arrangements fonciers en tant que processus d’adaptation à des règles contraignantes ne permettant pas aux acteurs d’atteindre leurs objectifs. Trois types d’arrangements ont pu être identifiés : des arrangements coopératifs, des arrangements néo-coutumiers et des arrangements spéculatifs. A travers l’analyse des jeux d’acteurs, la thèse souligne l’importance du rôle des acteurs, mais aussi du contexte socio-politico-spatial dans la construction des arrangements fonciers. / Who will take my land? The Office du Niger, international investments to local tenure arrangements.The 2008 global food crisis led to a wide dynamic of large scale investments in agriculture. In West Africa, the Office du Niger (ON) irrigation scheme is a significant example of such a dynamic of investment in agriculture. 45,000 family farmers grow rice on 100,000 hectares where they have never obtained property rights. Facing low national investment capacity and a significant decrease in the international development assistance, the Malian State launched an appeal to investors to reach the objective defined in the early 1930’s of one million hectares developed for irrigation. Investors were national or foreign investors from the private or public sectors. The State defined new rules to make their access to land easier. The risk of land grabbing linked to the arrival of new investors gave the signal for a rush to access to land in which different actors: investors, farmers, national or local officers, used informal arrangements.This research shows that these arrangements are historically rooted in the evolution of land management in the ON area. The main methodological contribution of this research is that arrangements are analyzed as a process that enables the different actors to adapt to binding rules, and finally to achieve their objectives. Three types of arrangements are described: cooperative arrangements, neo-customary arrangements, and speculative arrangements. By analyzing stakeholders’ games, this research highlights the importance of the actors’ positions and the socio-political context as key factors in the creation of new land arrangements.