- Determination of Parenthood The topic of my thesis is Determination of Parenthood. With this topic are connected problems not only legal, but often also social and ethical. Parenthood affects all of us and it's an important aspect of human life. That's why there should be legal assurance in relationship between parent and child. Development in the field of medicine is still ahead (mainly thanks to methods of assisted reproduction and DNA analysis) and the rules of law should respond and deal with it. The aim of this thesis is describe and become acquainted with problematics of determination of parenthood, valorize how legislation responds to modern development and to propose possible changes. Thesis is prepared on the basis of existing legislation on the date of submission of the thesis. Thesis is divided into seven main chapters, which are divided to further subsections. First chapter deals with concept of parenthood and methods of determination. Second chapter describes historical development of legislation on Czech territory, since Roman law to recodification of civil law. Related third chapter concisely summarizes national and international legal sources of current legislation. Chapter four is about determination of maternity and problems of surrogacy, anonymous childbirth, concealed birth...

Learner absenteeism is one of the major precursors to poor academic performance. If learners miss school, they do not learn and ultimately they fail or drop-out. Notwithstanding, this problem does not receive the attention it deserves. A literature study, which reviewed research findings concerning absenteeism in South Africa and selected countries, provided a framework for the ensuing empirical inquiry. A qualitative study using in-depth interviews, focus group interviews, document review and observation as data gathering techniques focused on two selected primary schools with a high rate of learner absenteeism in the Acornhoek area of Mpumalanga, South Africa. Participants were purposefully selected as information rich candidates: absentee learners, parents of absentee learners, teachers and school principals. Learner absenteeism negatively impacts effective professional practice, that is, teaching and learning. The study concludes with recommendations to prevent learner absenteeism in order to improve teaching and learning in South African primary schools. / Curriculum and Instructional Studies / M. Ed. (Curriculum Studies)

This study investigated access and use of information in the health-care of home-based elderly people (EPs) in Nakuru District, Kenya. The literature review revealed a gap with respect to information behaviour in health-care of EPs in a development context. The researcher used qualitative methods; with exploratory and descriptive research design because the focus of the study was on the littleknown and socially disadvantaged community of EPs in Nakuru District. Respondents were sampled by using the snowball technique. At the end of an interview session, each respondent was encouraged to nominate someone who either shared the same or had different experiences, views, socio-economic levels and gender. The researcher collected data through face-to-face interviews with EPs, informal care providers (ICPs) and formal health-care providers (FHCPs), in order to gain insight of information behaviour in health-care of EPs, by focusing on aspects of information needs; sources; use of information and factors that influence the respective groups of respondents to access and use health-care information health-care of EPs. The findings showed that the respective groups of respondents had similar as well as diversified needs for information for health-care. The groups used both formal and informal sources of information and channels of communication to access information for health-care, with FHCPs using authoritative sources more than the EPs and ICPs. Factors such as being a professional or a lay person, cost, ease of accessibility, availability of sources and channels of communication, time and trustworthiness of a source or channel of communication determined preference for use of information. The major contribution of the study is to the theory about information behaviour: some EPs and ICPs used CAM services without informing FHCPs, thereby revealing a form of concealed information use behaviour (CIUB). / Information Science / D. Litt. et Phil. (Information Science)

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This thesis presents a body of work on the theme of millimetre-wave FMCW radar, for the purposes of security screening and remote sensing. First, the development of an optimised software radar signal processor will be outlined. Through use of threading and GPU acceleration, high data processing rates were achieved using standard PC hardware. The flexibility of this approach, compared to specialised hardware (e.g. DSP, FPGA etc…), allowed the processor to be rapidly adapted and has produced a significant performance increase in a number of advanced real-time radar systems. An efficient tracker was developed and was successfully deployed in live trials for the purpose of real-time wave detection in an autonomous boat control system. Automated radar operation and remote data telemetry functions were implemented in a terrain mapping radar to allow continuous monitoring of the Soufrière Hills volcano on the Caribbean island of Montserrat. This work concluded with the installation of the system 3 km from the volcano. Hardware modifications were made to enable coherent measurement in a number of existing radar systems, allowing phase sensitive measurements, including range-Doppler, to be performed. Sensitivity to displacements of less than 200 nm was demonstrated, which is limited by the phase noise of the system. Efficient compensation techniques are presented which correct for quadrature mixer imbalance, FMCW chirp non-linearity, and scanner drive distortions. In collaboration with the Home Office, two radar systems were evaluated for the stand-off detection of concealed objects. Automatic detection capability, based on polarimetric signatures, was developed using data gathered under controlled conditions. Algorithm performance was assessed through blind testing across a statistically significant number of subjects. A detailed analysis is presented, which evaluates the effect of clothing and object type on detection efficiency.

This dissertation attempts to fill a void in early modern English drama studies by offering an in-depth, cross-gendered comparative study emphasizing representations of women’s discursive agency. Such an examination contributes to the continuing critical discussion regarding the nature and extent of women’s potential agency as speakers and writers in the period and also to recent attempts to integrate the few surviving dramas by women into the larger, male-dominated dramatic tradition. Because statements about the nature of women’s speech in the period were overwhelmingly male, I begin by establishing the richness and variety of women’s attitudes toward marriage and toward their speech relative to marriage through an examination of their first-person writings. A reassessment of the dominant paradigms of the shrew and the silent woman as presented in male-authored popular drama—including The Taming of the Shrew and Epicene—follows. Although these stereotypes are not without ambiguity, they nevertheless considerably flatten the contours of the historical patterns discernable in women’s lifewriting. As a result, female spectators may have experienced greater cognitive dissonance in reaction to the portrayals of women by boy actors. In spite of this, however, they may have borrowed freely from the occasional glimpses of newly emergent views of women readily available in the theater for their own everyday performances, as I argue in a discussion of The Shoemaker’s Holiday and The Roaring Girl. Close, cross-gendered comparison of two sets of similarly-themed plays follows: The Duchess of Malfi and The Tragedy of Mariam, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Love’s Victory. Here my examination reveals that the female writers’ critique of prevailing gender norms is more thorough than the male writers’ and that the emphasis on female characters’ material bodies, particularly their voices, registers the female dramatists’ dissatisfaction with the disfiguring representations of women on the maledominated professional stage. I end with a discussion of several plays by women—The Concealed Fancies, The Convent of Pleasure, and Bell in Campo—to illustrate the various revisions of marriage offered by each through their emphasis on gendered performance and, further, to suggest the importance of the woman writer’s contribution to the continuing dialectic about the nature of women and their speech.

This study investigated access and use of information in the health-care of home-based elderly people (EPs) in Nakuru District, Kenya. The literature review revealed a gap with respect to information behaviour in health-care of EPs in a development context. The researcher used qualitative methods; with exploratory and descriptive research design because the focus of the study was on the littleknown and socially disadvantaged community of EPs in Nakuru District. Respondents were sampled by using the snowball technique. At the end of an interview session, each respondent was encouraged to nominate someone who either shared the same or had different experiences, views, socio-economic levels and gender. The researcher collected data through face-to-face interviews with EPs, informal care providers (ICPs) and formal health-care providers (FHCPs), in order to gain insight of information behaviour in health-care of EPs, by focusing on aspects of information needs; sources; use of information and factors that influence the respective groups of respondents to access and use health-care information health-care of EPs. The findings showed that the respective groups of respondents had similar as well as diversified needs for information for health-care. The groups used both formal and informal sources of information and channels of communication to access information for health-care, with FHCPs using authoritative sources more than the EPs and ICPs. Factors such as being a professional or a lay person, cost, ease of accessibility, availability of sources and channels of communication, time and trustworthiness of a source or channel of communication determined preference for use of information. The major contribution of the study is to the theory about information behaviour: some EPs and ICPs used CAM services without informing FHCPs, thereby revealing a form of concealed information use behaviour (CIUB). / Information Science / D. Litt. et Phil. (Information Science)

The thesis aims to reconstruct the procedural rules that apply whenever the simulation of contract becomes an issue within a civil proceeding.To this end, a different method is followed from that commonly used by the courts and in the scholarly literature, which have mostly deduced the content of these rules assuming, as a starting point, a certain solution to the problem of the nature of simulated contracts. The courts, that still adhere to the traditional doctrine of nullity of the simulated contract, state that the rules of the civil code dedicated to the action and the objection of nullity shall also apply to the action and objection of simulation. Part of the scholars, rejecting such premises, uphold interpretative solutions that are at odds with those supported by the courts. On the contrary, in this thesis, the legal notion of simulation is assumed as a starting point. Such a legal notion describes the set of facts that lead to a simulation of a contract and to the legal consequences set forth in articles 1414 and ff of the civil code; these facts are thus material to the process in which the simulation is an issue. Hence, the first part of the thesis (chapters 1 to 4) aims at framing the legal notion of simulation within the main categories of civil procedure, and starts from the definition of the legal notion of simulation by critically assessing the two main conceptions of the simulation phenomenon that emerge from the conspicuous literature on the subject: a “negative” conception, which sees the simulation as the lack of an essential element of the contract, and a “positive” conception, which sees the simulation as an agreement between the parties with the aim of excluding the legal effects of a contract between them (simulation agreement). The arguments in support of this last conception are set forth; after that, the question of the structure of the so-called “concealed contract” and the role of the simulation agreement on its formation and effectiveness is examined. The framing of the simulation in the fundamental categories of the process is then carried out through the observation of the legal effects that the simulation activity produces with regard to third parties, and the procedural classification of the substantial categories referred to in Articles 1415 and 1416 of the Italian Civil Code (in particular, unopposability). Finally, the objective scope of the process in which the ascertainment of the simulation of a contract is requested (action of simulation) is defined by critically examining the prevailing doctrine, according to which the said action aims at ascertaining the lack of a “contractual relationship”. Another doctrine is then examined, according to which simulation and nullity may be described as authonomous legal effects capable of being ascertained within a judgment having the force of res judicata. The second part (chapters 5 and 6) is dedicated to the discussion of selected issues of “procedural dynamics”, namely: a) the objection of absolute simulation, and the problem wether the judge may decide upon it ex officio in both the processes aimed at enforcing a simulated contract, and in those that aim, on the contrary, at the declaration of nullity, or at the annulment, rescission or termination of the same contract; b) the multiple facets that the issue of absolute simulation presents in the course of a forced expropriation proceeding undertaken against an “apparent owner”; c) the form of the concealed contract and the extent to which the simulants may prove a relative simulation by witnesses, particularly in the event that the relative simulation of the price of a sale contract is alleged as an objection to an avoidance action promoted by the bankruptcy trustee; d) the stading to an action of simulation; e) the objective scope of the res judicata in the same action. / La tesi mira a ricostruire la disciplina processuale della simulazione negoziale, ossia le regole concernenti l'attività compiuta nel processo dalle parti e dal giudice, ogniqualvolta la simulazione di un negozio giuridico sia oggetto di allegazione, prova e decisione (nella forma della mera cognizione o dell'accertamento). Si segue, a tal fine, un metodo diverso da quello comunemente impiegato dalla giurisprudenza e dalla dottrina, le quali hanno perlopiù dedotto il contenuto di tali regole a partire dalla soluzione di volta in volta prescelta al problema della qualificazione del contratto simulato. La giurisprudenza, muovendo dalla tesi della nullità del contratto simulato, conclude per la diretta applicabilità delle norme del codice civile dedicate all'azione e all'eccezione di nullità. Parte della dottrina, discostandosi da quella premessa, propone soluzioni applicative di segno opposto. Al contrario, nel presente lavoro, la centralità solitamente assegnata al contratto simulato, è occupata dalla simulazione, ossia dalla fattispecie degli effetti che gli artt. 1414 e seguenti designano quali “effetti della simulazione”. Detta fattispecie è infatti quanto forma oggetto dell'attività dei soggetti del processo (l'allegazione, la prova, la cognizione e l'accertamento). La ricostruzione della disciplina processuale della simulazione muove pertanto dalla collocazione della fattispecie simulatoria entro le categorie che informano il contenuto di quella disciplina, e cioè la qualificazione della simulazione come tema di prova, come questione di merito oggetto di mera cognizione, nonché, infine, come oggetto del processo e dell'accertamento munito di autorità di cosa giudicata. La prima parte della tesi (capitoli da 1 a 4) si occupa esattamente di tale inquadramento, prendendo le mosse dalla definizione della fattispecie simulatoria e dalla discussione critica delle due opposte concezioni del fenomeno simulatorio che emergono dalla cospicua letteratura sul tema: una concezione “negativa”, che vede nella simulazione una forma qualificata di difetto della fattispecie negoziale, e una concezione “positiva”, che ravvisa la fattispecie simulatoria in un negozio distinto da quello simulato (il c.d. accordo simulatorio). Enunciate le ragioni a sostegno di quest'ultima concezione, si prende in esame la questione della struttura del contratto dissimulato e del ruolo dell'accordo simulatorio sulla formazione e l'efficacia del medesimo. L'inquadramento della simulazione nelle categorie fondamentali del processo prosegue mediante l'osservazione degli effetti giuridici che l'attività simulatoria produce riguardo ai terzi, e l'inquadramento processuale delle categorie sostanziali richiamate negli artt. 1415 e 1416 c.c. (segnatamente, l'inopponibilità). Infine, si definisce l'oggetto dell'azione di simulazione, mettendo di fronte la prevalente tesi che detto oggetto fa coincidere con il rapporto fondamentale contrattuale, e quella minoritaria che addita le azioni di simulazione e nullità quali esempi di processi di accertamento di situazioni giuridiche preliminari. Si sottopone quindi a critica la tesi del rapporto fondamentale. La seconda parte (capitoli 5 e 6) è dedicata alla discussione di profili scelti di dinamica processuale, segnatamente: l'eccezione di simulazione assoluta, e il problema della sua rilevabilità d'ufficio nei processi diretti all'esecuzione del contratto simulato, nonché in quelli che mirano, al contrario, alla dichiarazione della nullità, ovvero all'annullamento, alla rescissione o alla risoluzione dello stesso contratto; le molteplici sfaccettature che presenta la cognizione della simulazione assoluta nel corso (o a lato) dell'espropriazione forzata intrapresa contro il titolare apparente; la forma del contratto dissimulato e l'ampiezza dei poteri istruttori dei simulanti che intendano dar prova della simulazione relativa, e per suo tramite del contratto dissimulato, particolarmente nel caso in cui la simulazione relativa del prezzo venga addotta per contrastare l'azione revocatoria promossa dal curatore fallimentare contro una compravendita immobiliare “a prezzo vile”; la legittimazione ad agire nell'azione di simulazione; i limiti oggettivi del giudicato di accertamento della simulazione.