La présente thèse s’intéresse à l’authenticité du mobilier français de l’époque classique selon trois axes de réflexion : interprétation, évaluation et préservation. Dans un premier temps, le sens du mot « authenticité » est exploré ainsi que sa portée dans le domaine de la conservation du patrimoine culturel, et ce corrélativement à l’évolution de la pratique de la restauration. À partir des réflexions engagées lors de la Conférence de Nara sur l’authenticité, tenue au Japon en 1994 dans le cadre de la Convention du patrimoine mondial, des critères d’évaluation de l’authenticité spécifiques au mobilier sont proposés. Ensuite, les caractéristiques esthétiques du mobilier français de l’époque classique et les techniques qui lui sont associées sont traitées. Une « procédure d’authentification » est proposée pour évaluer et préserver son authenticité. Enfin, quatre études de cas illustrent les idées développées ; l’authenticité de chacun de ces meubles est appréciée à l’aide des « critères d’évaluation » établis. / This dissertation focuses on the authenticity of French furniture of the Classic period in regard to its interpretation, evaluation and preservation. The first part, theoretical, addresses the meaning of the word “authenticity” as well as its interpretation in the context of cultural heritage and looks into the history of conservation. Based on the exchanges carried out during the Nara Conference on Authenticity, held in Japan in 1994 in relation to the World Heritage Convention, specific evaluation criteria for furniture are suggested. The second part, technical, will review aesthetic features of French furniture of the Classic period as well as its associated techniques. An “authentication procedure” is proposed to evaluate and preserve authenticity. Four case studies allow, in the third part, to illustrate the ideas previously discussed; the authenticity of each of them is assessed from the “evaluation criteria” established.

Magister Legum - LLM / South Africa

Doctor Legum - LLD / In Africa generally, orphaned and vulnerable children are traditionally cared for by their relatives or close family friends; this is an abiding practice even in contemporary times. This was historically considered to be a moral obligation binding on different relatives in different ways or at differing levels. In the face of the increasing complexities and changing demographics in African societies, high levels of poverty and socioeconomic inequalities as well as the incidence of HIV and AIDS, among others, the traditional family continues to undergo structural changes and experience various challenges which make child rearing responsibilities difficult to cope with especially in the context of loss of parental care. Nonetheless, the extended family system still bears the greatest burden in caring for such children, despite the obligation of governments to provide alternative care for children without parental care. The care of children who have become deprived of parental care by other relatives/family members or family friends is generally described as kinship care. This study seeks to examine kinship care against the background of international children’s rights law as encapsulated in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the United Nations Guidelines on the Alternative Care of Children and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, among others. Thus, this research seeks answers to a number of related research questions such as: Does the international children’s rights framework recognise or provide for kinship care as a measure of alternative care for children deprived of a family environment? What is the history and practice of kinship care in Africa and what are the challenges confronting kinship care in contemporary African societies? What is the relationship between kinship care and the child protection system? And what forms of support are available for kinship care at both the international and national levels? Four main themes are considered in separate chapters of the thesis as follows: the contextual and historical background to kinship care in Africa; the international and regional legal framework on the right to alternative care; the conceptualisation of kinship care as alternative care; and the law and practice of kinship care in selected domestic jurisdictions. South Africa and Namibia are the main focus of this study in the chapter on the status of kinship care at the domestic level. This is mainly because both countries have made some progress in the attempts at (legally) providing for kinship care and addressing some of its attendant challenges, with a particular emphasis on the provision of support for kinship care.

Context: Exploratory testing (ET) is an approach to test software with a strong focus on personal skills and freedom of the tester. ET emphasises the simultaneous design and execution of tests with minimal test documentation. Test practitioners often claim that their choice to use ET as an important alternative to scripted testing is based on several benefits ET exhibits over the scripted testing. However, these claims lack empirical evidence as there is little research done in this area. Moreover, ET is usually considered an ad-hoc way of doing testing as everyone does it differently. There have been some attempts in past to provide structure to ET. Session based test management (SBTM) is an approach that attempts to provide some structure to ET and gives some basic guidelines to structuring the test sessions. However, these guidelines are still very abstract and are very open to individuals' interpretation. Objective: The main objective of this doctoral thesis is to support practitioners in their decisions about choosing exploratory versus scripted testing. Furthermore, it is also aimed to investigate the empirical evidence in support of ET and find ways to structure ET and classify different levels of exploration that drive the choices made by exploratory testers. Another objective of this thesis is to provide a decision support system to select levels of exploration in overall test process. Method: The findings presented in this thesis are obtained through a controlled experiment with participants from industry and academia, exploratory surveys, interviews and focus groups conducted at different companies including Ericsson AB, Sony Mobile Communications, Axis Communications AB and Softhouse Consulting Baltic AB. Results: Using the exploratory survey, we found three test techniques to be most relevant in context of testing software systems and in particular heterogeneous systems. The most frequently used technique mentioned by the practitioners is ET which is not a much researched topic. We also found many interesting claims about ET in grey literature produced by practitioners in the form of informal presentations and blogs but these claims lacked any empirical evidence. Therefore, a controlled experiment was conducted with students and industry practitioners to compare ET with scripted testing. The experiment results show that ET detects significantly more critical defects compared to scripted testing and is more time efficient. However, ET has its own limitations and there is not a single way to use it for testing. In order to provide structure to ET, we conducted a study where we propose checklists to support test charter design in ET. Furthermore, two more industrial focus group studies at four companies were conducted that resulted in a taxonomy of exploration levels in ET and a decision support method for selecting exploration levels in ET. Lastly, we investigated different problems that researchers face when conducting surveys in software engineering and have presented mitigation strategies for these problems. Conclusion: The taxonomy for levels of exploration in ET, proposed in this thesis, provided test practitioners at the companies a better understanding of the underlying concepts of ET and a way to structure their test charters. A number of influence factors elicited as part of this thesis also help them prioritise which level of exploration suits more to their testing in the context of their products. Furthermore, the decision support method provided the practitioners to reconsider their current test focus to test their products in a more effective way.

La responsabilité civile délictuelle a longtemps servi de fondement pour obtenir une réparation des préjudices causés par un écrit imprudent, une parole désobligeante ou la diffusion d’une information confidentielle. Alors qu’elle continue à être utilisée en Belgique et au Grand-Duché du Luxembourg, les juges français de la Cour de cassation ont tenté de supprimer cette possibilité par des arrêts d’Assemblée Plénière le 12 juillet 2000. Seize années d’insécurité juridique viennent de s’écouler. La présente étude tente de démontrer que la France a fait fausse route et qu’il est souhaitable –et souhaité- que la responsabilité civile délictuelle retrouve sa place en droit français et permette de fonder la sanction des abus de la liberté d’expression. La France est souvent condamnée pour sa gestion de la liberté d’expression. Jusqu’à présent, aucun recours n’a été déposé au sujet de l’éviction de la responsabilité civile mais plusieurs arguments autorisent à croire qu’une condamnation de l’exception française serait probable par la Cour de Strasbourg. / Tortious liability or Torts are useful to obtain compensation for damages of Speech : a careless paper, an unkind word or the disclosure of confidential informations. Tortious liability is currently used by the States of Belgium and Luxembourg. However, in France, on July 12th 2000, Cassation Court judges took several decisions to prevent tort law to be used in Freedom of Speech processes. Since then, France has been on a wrong path. This dissertation attempts to prove necessary the return of tortious liability in the media industry and law. France is often targeted by the ECHR for violation of article 10 (freedom of speech rights). So far, noone dared to form a request to the Strasbourg Court on the French Tort law ban. However, several reasons and arguments are available to the reader in order to expect that eventually France will be found wrong to keep on the ban of civil liability in speech freedom cases.

The main topic of the dissertation is the development and changes in the political thinking of Czech reform communism from 1968. While in the 1960s reform communism represented the dominant intellectual and political current, after the military invasion in August 1968 it gradually disappeared from the public discourse and was later completely suppressed by normalization propaganda and labeled as "counter- revolutionary" and "right-wing opportunist" ideology. The central questions of the thesis explore the changes that the political project of reform communism underwent during the twenty-one-year normalization period and the shifts that took place in the "horizon of expectation" of the Czechoslovak socialist opposition in the context of the intellectual and political changes of the 1970s and 1980s. The aim of the thesis is to explain the political perspectives of reform-communist intellectuals in the Czechoslovak opposition after 1968. They represented an important part of both domestic and especially exile opposition, which formed around the journal Listy. Some of them also played an important role in the creation of Charter 77 and its legalistic criticism. Nevertheless, their story does not fully fit into the traditional narrative of Czechoslovak dissent, as they never completely parted ways with...

This diploma thesis is concerning about summarizing and describing types of vibrations, their causes and influences to the machining. The stable conditions of machining were pointed out. The experiment was conducted in which the frequency response function of specific milling machine was measured. Than the stability lobe diagram was constructed.

Diploma thesis focuses on the design of a project solution for the creation of internet shop for a selected company with using project management methods. The thesis describes the theoretical knowledge about project management and analyses the corporate environment, based on which is created a proposal for solution of a project for successful realization of the new e-shop.

"The objectives of the study are as follows: 1. To critically examine the efficacy of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Women in Africa (SRRWA) with particular emphasis on the new legal framework created by the Protocol. 2. To investigate the operation of some universal and regional organs with comparable mandate, and their possible relevance to the improvement of the SRRWA. 3. To put forward recommendations for the improvement of the mandate of the SRRWA that will enhance its impact on the promotion and protection of women's rights in Africa. ... Following this introduction, the study is divided into three chapters. The first chapter traces the envolvement of the SRRWA in the Commission, provides its current operations and briefly expounds on the other mechanisms in the Commission targeting women. The second chapter evaluates both the terms of the mandate (within the context of the Protocol), and its successes and shortcomings. The third chapter explores comparative international and regional protection mechanisms and their possible relevance to the SRRWA. The fourth chapter contains recommendations on improving the mandate and concluding remarks." -- Introduction. / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2003. / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/academic_pro/llm1/dissertations.html / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

"Astoundingly, the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) does not contain [a] derogation clause. Furthermore, it has been established by the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (the Commission) in the case of Commission Nationale des Droits de l'Homme et des Libertes v Chad (Commission Nationale case) that a member state of teh ACHPR cannot derogate human rights in case of emergencies. Hence, the Commission's view may lead to a conclusion that all rights under the ACHPR are non-derogable. This raises the issue of whether it is tenable to conclude that a state facing a situation that endangers the nation, should not at all derogate from the provisions of the ACHPR. Emergency clauses, which permit derogation of human rights in times of emergencies, are also found in most domestic legal instruments. Most African states also encompass this clause in their constitutions. Although the levels of compliance by states are questionable, some of these constitutions also include a list of non-derogable rights. The constitutions of Ethiopia and Mozambique also provide for a derogation clause and a list of non-derogable rights. The aim of the study is to make a critical analysis of the African derogation system. Firstly, the study will analyse the concept of derogation and non-derogable rights in general. Secondly, the jurisprudence and the law of the African system with regard to derogation and non-derogable rights will be examined. In analysing the jurisprudence of the Commission effort will be made to critically study the cases that have been examined by the Commission in relation to derogation and non-derogable rights. Lastly, the compatibility of the Ethiopian and Mozambique constitutions in light of the African system and international standards will be discussed. ... Chapter one highlights the basis and structure of the entire study. Chapter two presents a brief historical evolution as well as conceptual framework of the system of derogation and non-derogable human rights in state of emergency. Chapter three focuses on the ACHPR and the jurisprudence of the Commission with regard to derogation and non-derogable rights in state of emergency. Chapter four assesses the compatibility of the non-derogable rights provided in the constitutions of African states with African and international standards. This chapter will [analyse], in particular, the constitutions and the practices of Ethiopia and Mozambique. Chapter five is a conclusion of the overall study stating specific recommendations." -- Introduction. / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2005. / Prepared under the supervision of Mr. Leopoldo Amaral, Faculty of Law, Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, Maputo, Mozambique / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/academic_pro/llm1/dissertations.html / Centre for Human Rights / LLM