Aircraft operators demand an ever increasing availability of their fleets with constant reduction of their operational costs. With the age of many fleets measured in decades, the options to face these challenges are limited. Integrated Vehicle Health Management (IVHM) uses data gathered through sensors in the aircraft to assess the condition of components to detect and isolate faults or even estimate their Remaining Useful Life (RUL). This information can then be used to improve the planning of maintenance operations and even logistics and operational planning, resulting in shorter maintenance stops and lower cost. Retrofitting health monitoring technology onto legacy aircraft has the capability to deliver what operators and maintainers demand, but working on aging platforms presents numerous challenges. This thesis presents a novel methodology to select the combination of diagnostic and prognostic tools for legacy aircraft that best suits the stakeholders’ needs based on economic return and financial risk. The methodology is comprised of different steps in which a series of quantitative analyses are carried out to reach an objective solution. Beginning with the identification of which components could bring higher reduction of maintenance cost and time if monitored, the methodology also provides a method to define the requirements for diagnostic and prognostic tools capable of monitoring these components. It then continues to analyse how combining these tools affects the economic return and financial risk. Each possible combination is analysed to identify which of them should be retrofitted. Whilst computer models of maintenance operations can be used to analyse the effect of retrofitting IVHM technology on a legacy fleet, the number of possible combinations of diagnostic and prognostic tools is too big for this approach to be practicable. Nevertheless, computer models can go beyond the economic analysis performed thus far and simulations are used as part of the methodology to get an insight of other effects or retrofitting the chosen toolset.

Denna kvalitativa studie syftar till att studera förekomsten av hot och våld mot lärare på högstadieskolor, hur man på de undersökta skolorna arbetar med att minimera förekomsten av hot och våld samt hur lärare definierar sin syn på vad som kan vara hot och våld från föräldrar och elever. Studien är baserad på ett riktat bekvämlighetsurval där skyddsombud på högstadieskolor i den undersökta kommunen valdes ut. I samband med analysen av studiens resultat har Lintons rollteori använts för att skapa ett perspektivseende på det undersökta problemet. Resultatet i studien visar att hot och våld mot lärare på högstadieskolor är ett förekommande problem, men att lärare har olika definition av begreppen hot och våld. Det skapar en osäkerhet i hur vanligt förekommande hot och våld gentemot lärare verkligen är. Resultaten visar att en stor brist finns i samsynen på problemet samt att det saknas handlingsplaner på de undersökta skolorna, vilket gör det svårt för skolorna att arbeta med att minimera hot och våld mot lärare. De skolor som undersökts arbetar trots avsaknaden av gemensamma handlingsplaner på olika sätt för att förebygga uppkomsten av hot och våld mot lärare, ofta genom personalkonferenser och relationsbyggande aktiviteter mellan lärare och elever.

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Magister Curationis - MCur / Background: Service-learning links academic acquisition with community-based work within a partnership framework, which is underpinned by values such as respect, reciprocity, relevance and reflection. This pedagogy has its roots in the northern hemisphere, but has become popular with higher education institutions across the globe. According to Butin, service-learning became institutionalised in the USA after a critical mass of service-learning champions was reached in the 1990s. Hence, the majority of higher education institutions are now subscribing to the national organisation, Campus Compact, which is committed to broadening the footprint of service-learning in this sector. Within the South African higher education sector, “service-learning” as a term became known in 1996. There is, however, wide-spread disagreement as to what is meant by “service-learning”, or exactly what it is meant to accomplish. As a result, education institutions must define it for themselves. A School of Nursing at a university in the Western Cape has defined service-learning during a baseline study that was conducted at the school and this particular definition is, therefore, regarded as a work in progress. Aim: The aim of the study was to refine the preliminary service-learning definition developed during the baseline study by identifying the main concepts that should be included in the definition of service-learning for this School of Nursing.

Mathematics education studies have shown that part of learning mathematics is learning its language. The language of mathematics is said to include specialised terms and ordinary language terms that have contextual meanings in mathematics. Considering the fact that learners in South Africa are performing poorly in mathematics in the international comparative studies, e.g. TIMSS, there was a need to investigate how teachers facilitate second language learners’ access to the meaning of mathematical terms in multilingual classrooms in South Africa. This study investigated a teacher’s practices in the facilitation of learner access to mathematical terminology in a Grade 11 multilingual class in a township school in Vosloorus, South Africa. The study employed a qualitative approach in investigating Discourse practices that the teacher used to define mathematical terms to second language learners in a multilingual classroom. Direct classroom observations and a teacher interview were the main data gathering methods. The main findings were that the teacher used a combination of interactive practices that involved group work, telling, individual student interactions and initiation, response and evaluation methods. Among definition teaching strategies used were the textbook procedural definition and the textbook descriptive definitions. The chalkboard and the textbook were the main artefacts of the Definition Discourse. The study concludes that the Definition Discourse of the multilingual classroom is a process that involves not only the definition of terms but also an integration of teaching methods and interactive practices where definitions of mathematical terms can be taught even through the eliciting of procedural methods of working out mathematical problems.

Esta dissertação tem por escopo a questão das emoções - ?à ???? - na obra de Aristóteles, principalmente nos livros I e II da Retórica e da Ética Nicomaquéia. A definição aristotélica de como ????? \'emoção\' foi compreendida de diversas formas, porém sempre a partir dos seguintes elementos: como integrante da porção não-racional da alma, habituável à tutela da razão, como manifestação psicofísica, como causada por cognições. O problema é, portanto, reencontrar e reunir todos esses elementos na obra do Estagirita. / This thesis aims at the question of emotions - ?à ???? - in the works of Aristotle, mainly in the first and second books of Rhetoric and Nicomachean Ethics. The Aristotelian definition of ????? as \'emotion\' was understood in different ways, but always from the following elements: as part of the nonrational portion of the soul; as something that can grow accustomed to reason; as a psychophysic manifestation; as caused by cognitions. The problem is to find and gather all these elements from the works of Aristotle.

Magister Artium - MA / Instructional verbs (such as analyse, summarise, apply, evaluate) have been referred to as performatives and have become the object of initiatives around developing and assessing students' academic literacy competencies. Although there are extensive studies on developing and evaluating performatives such as analyse, apply, create, there is one instructional verb that has not received much attention. It is the verb 'define'. The neglect of 'defining' as a performative in the relevant research on academic literacies may be explained by the low value attributed to this performative in different taxonomies of educational outcomes where it is placed along with verbs such as 'list', 'identify', 'recall' identified as lower-order thinking skills. As a result of the dearth of studies of definition in academic literacy contexts, there are a number of questions that have not been addressed. We do not know the extent to which definitional knowledge may be central to efforts at developing the overall academic literacy of students. We do not know if the language in which students read academic texts (home language or second/third language) affects their ability to differentiate definitions from non-definitions, or to formulate definitions of concepts. This point is especially important as it is all too often assumed that (even without attention to relevant academic literacy development) the use of the home language of students necessarily enhances academic performance. Also, our knowledge is rather limited with respect to how different definitional structures affect the ability of students to recognize definitions in their study materials. It is also not clear how to intervene in order to make it explicit to students what may be expected of them in terms of defining in their academic work. Given the foregoing, this research analyses the notion of ‘definition’ as an integral component of the academic literacy of university students, with the focus being on determining the knowledge around definitions possessed by students in the Linguistics and Xhosa departments of the University of the Western Cape. Specifically, the study assesses the following: the structure of definitions in selected textbooks; students' awareness of the existence of different definitional structures in their textbooks; their ability to identify the concepts being defined in specific passages; their ability to define concepts; their ability to distinguish definitions from non-definitions; and their awareness of how definitions may be introduced. The study also investigates how the language of the textbook (home language versus second/third language of the students) may impact on the performance of students in assessments of definitional knowledge. In terms of theoretical framing, the study is informed by an approach to definitions taken in the field of terminology and by the academic literacy framework which stipulates that students' academic literacy practices are inextricably shaped by different factors such as basic skills possessed by them, institutional ideologies, contexts and issues of power. The research uses a mixed-method paradigm. A total of 100 definitions excerpted from English and isiXhosa textbooks were analysed qualitatively to describe the structure of definitions (in the textbooks), using as parameters the following: definiendum (item to be defined), definiens (meaning) and definitor (link between definiendum and definiens). Quantitative data on students' knowledge of different aspects of the notion 'definition' were collected by means of questionnaires completed by 50 students from each of the Linguistics and Xhosa departments of the University of the Western Cape. While the former have English as their major language of academic literacy, the latter have isiXhosa. Chi-square tests were administered to examine whether or not there was a significant relationship between the language of the questionnaire and students' performance. Overall, the research findings suggest that definition writing is not an autonomous phenomenon; rather, it is socioculturally (e.g. language, discipline) shaped. In this respect, the way definitions are structured in English (in a linguistics textbook) is in many respects different from the way they are constructed in isiXhosa (in books on cultural studies). With regard to students' performance on a range of definition tasks in the questionnaires administered, the findings reveal that the major language of academic literacy (also home language in the case of Xhosa students) may have a positive impact on how students perform tasks requiring them to, for instance, identify definienda (concepts being defined) and definientia (meanings), and/or to spot a definition within a passage. Unlike with these datasets, other findings show that the main language of academic literacy is not a significant explanation of students' underperformance in tasks requiring them to identify a definition that is wrongly introduced and also to produce definitions of their own. The findings underscore the need for explicit teaching as recommended by the academic literacies model. A pedagogical guide outlining how a course on definition could be structured is proposed.

The purpose of this thesis is to see how the Swedish public libraries present e-books on their website. This study has tried to answer the following questions:1. How do the public libraries construct their definitions of the word e-book, and what patterns are there in the definitions?2. How is the e-book definition presented in the context of the public library websites?This study has formulated its own theoretical framework in regards to how you can categorize definitions in four different categories to help see the way a definition is constructed. The framework also contains how different parts of the definition work towards the purpose of the definition.This study has been conducted through a content analysis. Among the public libraries we have studied, we have not observed a definition that was generally used for the word e-book. However the similarities between the definitions were plenty. The definitions most used were descriptive definitions. They tended to contain the same elements but were expressed in a variety of ways. The result showed consistency with the literature in the field.We have also observed that the public library website tends to categorize the information on and/or definition of e-books below a variety of terms. We have also observed that the definition tends to be the first thing mentioned in the part about e-books. The definition tended to be placed above the fold on the webpage. / Program: Bibliotekarie

This study asks what quality is and according to whom, through exploring the understandings of quality among stakeholders within a university’s internal quality assurance system. The focus is on teachers, students, and policy, as well as the difference between them. A case-study is made of two faculties within Uppsala University, with material based on both semi-structured interviews and text analysis of evaluation policy and assessor reports. The findings show a large focus on quality as goal fulfilment among both students and teachers. Ideas diverge where students focus more on relative quality and consistency, and teachers on transforming the students’ thinking. Policy is also focused upon goal fulfilment though kept relatively vague, inviting stakeholders to influence how quality is defined. Theoretical quality concepts from Harvey and Green (1993) are used and developed further in their practical application, with emphasis on the somewhat contested use of quality as consistency within the sphere of higher education. The findings also suggest a need for more explicit discussions between stakeholders regarding the view of quality within the university internal evaluations.

Despite the successful application of lean thinking across a wide range of industries, and a number of UK Government funded programmes such as the Construction Lean Improvement Programme and Constructing Excellence, the construction sector lags behind other sectors as highlighted in the Egan Report (1998) and more recently in Sir John Egan’s speech to the House of Commons in 2008 which gave the construction industry “four out of ten – for trying.”This led to the research question: What are the critical success factors for lean construction interventions? The emergence of lean production as a concept and the contributions of its key historic influencers are explored. Differences between construction and manufacturing are compared and discussed, and it is concluded that there is no practical reason why lean production cannot be successfully applied to construction operations. However, the issue of buildings being “rooted-in-place” is a potential barrier to true global competition. Progress was made towards a satisfactory definition of lean construction, a term hitherto ill-defined. Nineteen potential critical success factors (CSF) were identified in a literature review. A pilot study conducted with senior construction staff experienced in lean construction identified a further seven potential critical success factors and discounted three derived from the literature. Face-to-face interviews with thirty-one construction staff that had attempted lean construction interventions were conducted to examine the significance of each factor. Of the interventions, twenty-six were successful and six were failures. Statistical analysis compared the failure and success groups and of a total of twenty-three factors examined, thirteen were critical, two important, seven not critical and one unknown. Some of the most cited lean critical success factors, for example “There must be a crisis”, were shown to be not significantly important for the construction sector. Interdependencies between the statistically significant factors were explored and it was concluded that a wide concern with “getting buy-in” exists. Three factors appeared to possess a greater ability to influence all the others: the capability of management; client influence; and the right facilitator.