Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Chemistry / Mark D. Hollingsworth / The ferroelastic urea inclusion compound (UIC) of 2,10-undecanedione/urea exhibits a striking pseudoelastic memory effect. Although pseudoelasticity is possible for UICs containing only 2,10-undecanedione, introduction of a structurally similar guest impurity (2-undecanone) gives rise to rubber-like behavior, a form of pseudoelasticity. This phenomenon depends on both the crystal strain and the concentration of monoketone: above 13-14% 2-undecanone, pseudoelastic behavior is observed reliably, even at strains as high as 2.4%. The dramatic change in ferroelastic behavior over a small range of impurity content indicates that this is a critical threshold phenomenon. Because the impurity concentration has such a dramatic effect on domain switching, it was important to determine the sector-dependent patterns of incorporation of this relaxive impurity. Preliminary HPLC analyses of guest populations suggest that preferential incorporation of monoketone guests occurs between nonequivalent growth sectors, and that these patterns can be rationalized using a symmetry specific growth model. Birefringence mapping and HPLC studies of optically anomalous UICs containing mixtures of 2,9-decanedione and 2-decanone (which possess trigonal metric symmetry) suggest analogous patterns in guest incorporation and/or ordering that can also be rationalized. Although crystals of 2,9-decanedione/urea exhibit no ferroelastic strain at ambient temperature, they exhibit a proper ferroelastic phase transition near -170[degrees]C. It is proposed that differential perfection of domains gives rise to pseudoelasticity in UICs, and that relaxive impurities play an important role in the energetics of this process. Because ultrafast video studies of domain reversion kinetics demonstrate no clear correlation of observed rates with impurity content, it is proposed that the relaxive impurities facilitate spontaneous domain reversion by annealing stressed defect sites that would otherwise lead to irreversible or plastic domain switching. Following earlier work using synchrotron white beam X-ray topography, the driving force for domain reversion is thought to involve the presence of nanoscopic twins whose strain is epitaxially mismatched with neighboring daughter domains. The behavior of these nanoscopic twins was monitored with in-situ X-ray diffraction studies of stressed crystals, and this has led to a more thorough understanding of the role of these nanoscopic twins in the ferroelastic domain switching and rubber-like behavior in this class of materials.

Actinides, especially plutonium (Pu) and americium (Am), are of large concern for the disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF). The rather long half-lives of the isotopes Pu-239, Am-241 and Am-243, are causing them to govern the radiotoxicity of SNF from about 500 to 1 million years after removal from the reactor core. Therefore, the safety of a final high-level radioactive waste (HLW) repository largely depends on the mobility of these actinide isotopes. In a worst-case scenario, where water enters a HLW repository, the dissolution of the SNF matrix may lead to the mobilization of actinides. In sub-surface environments under reducing conditions, these actinides can be expected to exist in their tetravalent or trivalent oxidation states, of which the latter one is more soluble and, thus, more mobile. Therefore, the trivalent oxidation state can be considered especially important. Following a release of these trivalent actinides, the multi-barrier concept of a final repository is designed to hinder their spreading into the environment through immobilization reactions such as adsorption to a surface or incorporation via secondary phase formation. One of the first possible interaction partners for actinides is the corrosion layer on the cladding material surrounding the fuel rods, consisting of zirconia (ZrO2). ZrO2 is capable to act as adsorber material for actinides as well as of incorporating large quantities of actinides. Furthermore, zirconia is a promising solid phase for the immobilization of certain waste streams from SNF reprocessing. Therefore, the possible interaction mechanisms between trivalent actinides and zirconia were studied in this thesis. In this work, various methods have been combined to gain comprehensive understanding of the macro scale as well as the molecular interactions taking place in the presence of zirconia. Information of macro scale phenomena in sorption and incorporation studies was obtained in batch-sorption experiments and with powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), respectively. Luminescence spectroscopy (TRLFS, from time-resolved laser-induced fluorescence spectroscopy) was used in sorption and incorporation investigations to study molecular level interactions of trivalent elements on the surface or in the bulk of ZrO2. The incorporation studies were complemented with extended X-ray absorption fine-structure (EXAFS) spectroscopy. Most experiments were performed using Eu3+ (batch-sorption, TRLFS), or Y3+ (EXAFS) as actinide analogues. Spectroscopic sorption studies and complementary incorporation experiments were performed using the actinide Cm3+ (TRLFS). To study zirconia solid solutions, co-precipitation synthesis of M3+ doped hydrous zirconia, followed by calcination of the resulting phase was performed. A low-temperature hydrothermal synthesis procedure, adapted with the intent to simulate conditions potentially present in a HLW repository, was applied to selected Eu3+ doped ZrO2 compositions. The aim of these studies was to investigate how solid solution formation occurs under such hydrothermal conditions and to compare the incorporation behavior with that of the calcination method. Batch-sorption experiments revealed a favorable pH-dependent behavior for the retention of trivalent actinides in a HLW repository, as complete sorption of Eu3+ was achieved at a pH < 6 for low trivalent metal ion concentrations. The formation of three pH-dependent inner-sphere sorption complexes could be derived with TRLFS. Here, the spectroscopic signature of the third sorption complex differs from the other two. A very strong redshift of the Cm3+ emission peak (612.5 nm) and a long luminescence lifetime (190 ± 40 μs) allows for speculation, whether differing complexing anions, such as carbonates, could play a role or whether differing interaction processes, such as a surface layer incorporation could take place. The incorporation of trivalent cations into zirconia leads to a phase transformation from monoclinic (m) ZrO2, stable without any dopant to the stabilized tetragonal (t) and cubic (c) ZrO2 phases. At doping fractions high enough to stabilize the tetragonal or cubic phase, TRLFS revealed the presence of three differing dopant sites. The introduction of the aliovalent Eu3+ cation into the Zr4+ crystal structure results in the formation of oxygen vacancies to preserve charge neutrality in the crystal structure. Two of these dopant environments could be assigned to structurally incorporated Eu3+ with differing coordination numbers of 8 and 7, i.e. sites with zero or one oxygen vacancy in the first coordination sphere, respectively. The third Eu3+ species could be assigned to incorporation into surface or near-surface layers of zirconia. EXAFS revealed a constant environment of the host (Zr4+) and the dopant (Y3+) within the low doping range as well as within the stabilized zirconia phases. Therefore, the differing sites observed via TRLFS could not be observed here. Incorporation into t- or c-ZrO2 has shown a non-distinguishable spectroscopic behavior meaning that the dopant’s environment in t-ZrO2 and c-ZrO2 is very similar. TRLFS shows a low site symmetry of the dopant in both cases, despite of the high bulk symmetry, i.e. tetragonal or cubic. In the non-stabilized monoclinic crystal structure, Eu3+ incorporation was found to be accompanied by the formation of a secondary phase. The secondary phase is assumed to be nano clusters of the dopant’s oxide, forming inside the zirconia matrix. The hydrothermal synthesis of Eu3+ doped ZrO2 revealed a different phase composition as a function of dopant concentration than observed with the calcination method. At low dopant concentrations where the m-ZrO2 prevails after high-temperature treatment, t- and c-ZrO2 are very abundant after hydrothermal treatment. This is a result of the small crystallite size resulting from the low synthesis temperature and short synthesis time, which causes the stabilization of the tetragonal phase even without any dopant present. At higher doping fractions, phase compositions comparable to the calcination synthesis are obtained. Both, the sorption as well as the incorporation behavior of zirconia studied here show properties advantageous for the retention of trivalent actinides within the environment of a HLW repository. TRLFS studies of the sorption speciation showed the formation of inner-sphere complexes and, possibly surface layer incorporated species, which are more stable under environmental conditions than interactions based on Coulomb interactions only. The speciation of the Cm3+ sorption on zirconia was studied and thermodynamic data was derived via surface complexation modeling for the first time. The very systematic approach of studying the doping throughout a large range resulted in basic understanding of the dopant behavior in zirconia. The incorporation capabilities of actinides into the lattice was observed to be high for t- and c-ZrO2 while rather limited for m-ZrO2. Therefore, the monoclinic structure seems to be unsuitable for incorporating trivalent dopants. Under conditions potentially present in a HLW repository, i.e. hydrothermal synthesis conditions, the amount of m-ZrO2 was observed to be strongly reduced for low overall dopant concentrations. This could facilitate the incorporation of actinides into zirconia even at low concentration levels and therefore, increase its capabilities to act as a retention barrier in a HLW repository. The conclusions of this thesis are of importance in the field of nuclear waste management as they help closing gaps in the understanding of retention processes of trivalent actinides. The obtained molecular information can be built on with experiments designed to obtain reliable thermodynamic data, used in the safety analysis of a HLW repository. Furthermore, the interaction of zirconia with other actinides can be studied in a targeted manner based on the knowledge obtained in this thesis. In the field of material sciences, the molecular information obtained here is of interest as well, as zirconia is a very versatile material. This is due to its abundance of applications ranging from electrolyte material in solid oxide fuel cells to building materials.

The objective of this master´s thesis is an appreciation of financial stability of the company Sladovny Soufflet ČR, a.s. in terms of elementary methods of financial analysis. In connection with incorporation of outputs of financial analysis the proposals for improvements in problematic areas of company´s financial stability are formulated.

Thesis advisor: Abhishek Chatterjee / The emergence of genetic code expansion (GCE) technology, which enables sitespecific incorporation of unnatural amino acids (UAAs) into proteins, has facilitated powerful new ways to probe and engineer protein structure and function. Using engineered orthogonal tRNA/aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase (aaRS) pairs that suppress repurposed nonsense codons, a variety of structurally diverse UAAs have been incorporated into proteins in living cells. This technology offers tremendous potential for deciphering the complex biology of eukaryotes, but its scope in eukaryotic systems remains restricted due to several technical limitations. For example, development of the engineered tRNA/aaRS pairs for eukaryotic GCE traditionally relied on a eukaryotic cell-based directed evolution system, which are significantly less efficient relative to bacteria-based engineering platforms. The work described in this thesis establishes a new paradigm in GCE through the development of a novel class of universal tRNA/aaRS pairs, which can be used for ncAA incorporation in both E. coli and eukaryotes. We achieve this by developing engineered strains of E. coli, where one of its endogenous tRNA/aaRS pair is functionally replaced with an evolutionarily distant counterpart. The liberated pair can then be used for GCE in the resulting altered translational machinery (ATM) strain, as well as any eukaryote. Using this strategy, we have been able to genetically encode new bioconjugation chemistries, post-translational modifications, and facilitate the incorporation of multiple, distinct ncAAs into a single protein. The ATM technology holds enormous promise for significantly expanding the scope of the GCE technology in both bacteria and eukaryotes. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2019. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Chemistry.

付記する学位プログラム名: グローバル生存学大学院連携プログラム / 京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(農学) / 甲第21465号 / 農博第2308号 / 新制||農||1064(附属図書館) / 学位論文||H31||N5160(農学部図書室) / 京都大学大学院農学研究科地域環境科学専攻 / (主査)教授 舟川 晋也, 教授 間藤 徹, 教授 縄田 栄治 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Agricultural Science / Kyoto University / DFAM

In this survey- and interview study based on 15 teachers in Sweden and their thoughts about their own experience of their teaching to students with migration backgrounds has the following information emerged. Some of the teachers who have participated admit that they find it difficult to base their work to the laws and guidelines. Many of the teachers testify that some principals do not place trust in their teachers’ abilities and do not give them the right conditions they need to be able to do their job. The teachers who enjoyed the work the most and who felt that they could manage their job were the once who experienced that they had committed and supportive principals behind them. But also, when they felt that they experienced a team spirit with their coworkers and that they worked together as like the whole school were united. It affected both students and teachers in a positive way being able to give the students the best conditions to achieve goal fulfillment. According to the teachers the teaching will work best when they are able to give the students the attention that they deserve and need and even when they can listen to the student’s thoughts and opinions as well, because those are important. The teachers pointed out that it is important for the teachers and students to get to know each other to build up trust between them, because it will be easier to get the students to be more involved in the classroom when they feel that connection. The teachers described that the most of their lessons often stop with briefings and that the teachers often did not have time to let the students work alone to prove what they are able to manage because of the classes different skills among the students. The teachers also described that they had a lot of work beside the teaching, like having phone calls and meetings with for example the children’s psychologists, the social service, the police, and the Migrations office, and that it took a lot of their time from them to do planning for the teaching. They also pointed out that they did not feel that they had the education for that part of the job. It also appeared that the language difference between the teachers and the students was a problematic cause of their job. The teachers said that the language must come before the learning part. It also came up that the schools gave the students a lot of different prerequisites when it came to get help with the schoolwork from interpreters. A suggestion from the teachers was to make new ways to build up the classes through the student’s skills instead of the way they make it now, through the student´s ages. Even more ways to show the students’ knowledge in different ways of grades was asked for by the teachers.

Photoreceptors are highly specialized neurons within the eye and the key retinal cells sensing light. They are indispensable for our visual perception and loss of photoreceptors consequently leads to loss of vision, a sense that alone is responsible for more than 30% of the input to our brain. Vision impairment and blindness is a leading cause of disability in the industrialized world and is in many cases ultimately due to a degeneration of the photoreceptors, which cannot be halted or reversed. Retinal degenerative diseases encompass a heterogeneous group of etiologies, mainly caused by various mutations in a plethora of proteins involved in the visual process. Currently, several therapeutic options are being explored, with so far one gene therapy for a rare inherited blinding condition being clinically approved. However, the gene therapy approach requires not only the presence of remaining photoreceptors but the tailoring of the therapy to each individual mutation. An alternative, more generally applicable approach is to restore vision through photoreceptor replacement therapy. As such, research on mouse-to-mouse photoreceptor transplantations has been carried out for many years, though with mixed results. In the last decade, it has however also become possible to generate large quantities of human photoreceptors through retinal organoid technology, allowing to instead transplant human cells. While promising, this field is still in development and principal conditions for successful photoreceptor transplantation have yet to be defined. Here, human-to-mouse photoreceptor transplantations were performed and assessed with the aim to receive insights into retinal cell replacement technology with specific focus on photoreceptor maturation, polarization and functional integration. Using a cone-degeneration host line, large-scale incorporation of human photoreceptor grafts into the murine retina was shown for the first time. It was found that for human photoreceptors, the choice of developmental stage strongly affects incorporation and maturation capacity. Furthermore, the results demonstrate the necessity of adequate graft-host interaction for successful transplant maturation and function, suggesting that photoreceptor replacement strategies might benefit from transplantation in earlier rather than late stages of retinal degeneration. Taken together, this thesis lays important groundwork for the further development of human photoreceptor replacement strategies to treat retinal degenerative disease.:ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I ABSTRACT III ZUSAMMENFASSUNG V PUBLICATIONS VII TABLE OF CONTENTS IX LIST OF FIGURES XIII LIST OF TABLES XIV GENERAL ABBREVIATIONS XV GENE AND PROTEIN ABBREVIATIONS XVII 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 THE RETINA AND LIGHT PERCEPTION 1 1.1.1 General structure of the eye 1 1.1.2 General structure of the retina 1 1.1.3 General photoreceptor structure 3 1.1.4 Phototransduction 4 1.1.5 Signal transmission to the brain 6 1.1.6 Major differences between rods and cones 7 1.1.7 The role of Müller glia in photoreceptor support and light perception 9 1.2 RETINAL DEGENERATION DISEASES AND TREATMENT OPTIONS 11 1.2.1 Retinal degeneration diseases 11 1.2.2 Therapeutic approaches to treat retinal degeneration diseases 12 1.3 CELL REPLACEMENT AS TREATMENT APPROACH FOR RETINOPATHIES 14 1.3.1 Transplantations of rodent retinal tissue and cells 14 1.3.2 Transplantations of human retinal tissue and cells 17 1.4 AIM OF THIS THESIS 22 2 CHARACTERIZATION OF CRX-MCHERRY HUMAN RETINAL ORGANOIDS AS PHOTORECEPTOR CELL SOURCE 23 2.1 AIMS 23 2.2 CHARACTERIZATION OF CRX-MCHERRY REPORTER-EXPRESSING CELLS 23 2.2.1 Crx-mCherry expression overlaps with endogenous CRX expression and increases over time 23 2.2.2 Crx-mCherry organoids contain an outer and an inner nuclear layer 24 2.2.3 Crx-mCherry+ cells express early and mature rod and cone markers 25 2.2.4 Crx-mCherry+ cells do not express proliferation markers 27 2.3 ENRICHMENT AND CHARACTERIZATION OF CRX-MCHERRY+ DONOR CELLS 28 2.3.1 Enrichment of Crx-mCherry+ cells by FACS 28 2.3.2 Characterization of Crx-mCherry enriched cells by single cell sequencing 29 2.3.3 Characterization of D200 Crx-mCherry-enriched cells by immunocytochemistry 30 2.4 SUMMARY 31 3 TRANSPLANTATION OF HUMAN CRX-MCHERRY+ GRAFTS AGED D100, D200 AND D300 INTO CPFL1 MICE 33 3.1 AIMS 33 3.2 CRX-MCHERRY+ CELLS OF ALL AGES CAN BE TRANSPLANTED AND SURVIVE IN THE MURINE RETINA 33 3.2.1 Human grafts can be identified by RCVRN staining 34 3.2.2 D100 Crx-mCherry+ transplants are larger than D200 and D300 grafts 34 3.2.3 Graft volume increase over time is not due to in vivo proliferation 36 3.3 GRAFT MORPHOLOGY DIFFERS WITH DONOR AGES 37 3.3.1 Human grafts can adopt an intraretinal position 37 3.3.2 Graft positioning changes over time 37 3.3.3 Qualitative differences in graft morphology between donor ages 38 3.4 GRAFT MATURATION 41 3.4.1 D200 but not D100 or D300 grafts develop large quantities of inner segments 41 3.4.2 Inner segment development is associated with close proximity to the host retina 42 3.5 HUMAN IDENTITY OF INTRARETINAL GRAFTS 43 3.5.1 Intraretinal Crx-mCherry+ grafts are largely a result of true morphological incorporation 43 3.5.2 Rare indications of potential human-to-mouse material transfer 45 3.6 SUMMARY 47 4 IN DEPTH CHARACTERIZATION OF TRANSPLANTED D200 CRX-MCHERRY+ CELLS 49 4.1 AIMS 49 4.2 EARLY POST TRANSPLANTATION DYNAMICS IN GRAFT POSITIONING AND GRAFT-HOST INTERACTIONS 49 4.2.1 Intraretinal and proximal D200 grafts interact with the host retina while isolated and distal clusters show only little interaction 49 4.2.2 Incorporation of D200 grafts is first evident at 8 weeks post transplantation 50 4.2.3 Host Müller glia extend processes into the graft before host bipolar cells 51 4.2.4 MG staining in D200 grafts originates from host MG 51 4.3 INCORPORATING D200 GRAFTS POLARIZE AND FORM STRUCTURES OF MATURE PHOTORECEPTORS 53 4.3.1 Grafts and host form an outer limiting membrane (OLM)-like structure 53 4.3.2 Inner segment formation occurs where an OLM is formed 54 4.3.3 Incorporating grafts form outer segment-like structures 55 4.3.4 Incorporating grafts form synaptic structures 57 4.3.5 Transplanted Crx-mCherry+ cells become enriched for cones 58 4.3.6 Higher levels of mature photoreceptor markers in ex vivo compared to in vitro cones 60 4.4 INCORPORATION AND MATURATION CAPACITY DEPEND ON THE HOST ENVIRONMENT 63 4.4.1 Graft morphology and maturation in C57BL/6JRj recipients resembles that in Cpfl1 hosts 63 4.4.2 Graft morphology and maturation in highly degenerated rd1 and tgCR host lines differs strongly from the outcome in models with an ONL 63 4.5 SUMMARY 67 5 FUNCTIONAL ASSESSMENT OF TRANSPLANTED CRX-MCHERRY+ CELLS 69 5.1 AIMS 69 5.2 HIGH-LEVEL FUNCTION 69 5.2.1 Light-Dark Box 69 5.3 TISSUE-LEVEL FUNCTION 71 5.3.1 Multi-electrode array assessment of D200+26w grafts in Cpfl1 mice 71 5.3.2 Isolation of cone-mediated RGC response through photopic light stimulation and L-AP4 addition 71 5.3.3 Graft-containing retinal portions exhibit cone-mediated light responses 72 5.4 SUMMARY 74 6 DISCUSSION AND FUTURE PERSPECTIVES 75 6.1 HUMAN GRAFTS CAN MORPHOLOGICALLY INCORPORATE INTO THE MODERATELY DEGENERATED MOUSE RETINA 75 6.2 INTRARETINAL GRAFTS MOSTLY REPRESENT TRUE INCORPORATION EVENTS, NOT MATERIAL TRANSFER 76 6.3 GRAFT MATURATION DEPENDS ON GRAFT-HOST INTERACTION 77 6.4 ESTABLISHMENT OF GRAFT-HOST INTERACTION AND GRAFT INCORPORATION 78 6.5 D200 CRX-MCHERRY+ CELLS ARE THE PREFERABLE DONOR POPULATION COMPARED TO D100 AND D300 80 6.6 CONES SHOW PREFERENTIAL SURVIVAL POST GRAFTING 81 6.7 FUNCTIONAL ANALYSES OF TRANSPLANTED ANIMALS 82 6.8 FUTURE CLINICAL TRANSLATION 85 6.9 MAJOR CONTRIBUTION TO OTHER WORK 88 7 FINAL CONCLUSION 89 8 MATERIALS AND METHODS 91 8.1 STUDY APPROVAL 91 8.2 MATERIALS 91 8.2.1 Materials and Chemicals 91 8.2.2 Cell Line 92 8.2.3 Mouse Lines 92 8.2.4 Antibodies 93 8.3 METHODS 95 8.3.1 Cell culture 95 8.3.2 Transplantations 96 8.3.3 Functional analyses 98 8.3.4 Immunohistochemistry and Immunocytochemistry 100 8.3.5 Imaging and image processing 103 8.3.6 Statistics 106 8.3.7 Single cell sequencing 107 8.3.8 Bioinformatic analysis 108 9 BIBLIOGRAPHY 111 10 APPENDIX 128 10.1 APPENDIX 1: ERKLÄRUNGEN ZUR ERÖFFNUNG DES PROMOTIONSVERFAHRENS 128 10.2 APPENDIX 2: BESTÄTIGUNG ÜBER EINHALTUNG DER AKTUELLEN GESETZLICHEN VORGABEN 129

This thesis explores the variable behavior of bare nouns in Persian. Bare singular nouns realize different grammatical functions, including subject, object and indirect object. They receive different interpretations, including generic, definite and existential readings. However, the task of understanding the reasons for, and limits on, this variation cannot be achieved without understanding a number of pivotal features of Persian sentential architecture, including Information Structure, prosody, word order, and the functions of various morphological markers in Persian. After a brief introduction, chapters 2-3 deal with bare noun objects, firstly comparing them with nominals marked with indefinite morpheme -i suffixed to the noun, and the determiner yek. A bare noun object differs from morphologically marked nominals as it shows properties associated with noun incorporation in the literature (chapter 2). Of particular interest are the discourse properties of these ‘quasi-incorporated’ nominals. With respect to the discourse transparency of Incorporated Nominals, Persian belongs to the class of discourse opaque languages within Mithun’s classification (1984). However, under certain circumstances, Persian bare nouns show discourse transparency. These circumstances are examined in chapter 3, and it is proposed that bare nouns do introduce a number neutral discourse referent. There are no overt anaphoric expressions that could match such number-neutral antecedents in Persian. But covert anaphora lack number features, and hence can serve as means to pick up a number-neutral discourse referent. Also, in case world knowledge tells us that the number-neutral discourse referent is anchored to an atomic entity or to a collection, then an overt singular pronoun or an overt plural pronoun might fit the combined linguistic and conceptual requirements, and may be used to pick up the number-neutral discourse referent. This proposal is phrased within Discourse Representation Theory. In the second half of the dissertation, the interpretation of bare nouns in different positions and with different grammatical functions are discussed. Under the independently supported hypothesis of position>interpretation mapping developed by Diesing (1992), we will see the role of the suffix -ra in indicating that an object has been moved out of VP. Following Diesing, I assume that VP-internal variables are subject to an operation of Existential Closure. In many cases, VP-external –ra-marked objects have a different interpretation to their VP-internal, non-ra-marked, counterparts, because of escaping Existential Closure. For subjects, there is no morphological marking corresponding to –ra on objects, and we have to rely on prosody and word order to determine how a VP is interpreted using theories of the interaction of accent and syntactic structure. We assume that VP-internal subjects exist, under two independent but converging assumptions. The first is prosodic in nature: Subjects can be accented without being narrowly focused; theories of Persian prosody predict then that there is a maximal constituent that contains both the subject and the verb as its head. The second is semantic in nature: Bare nouns require an external existential closure operation to be interpreted existentially, and we have to assume existential closure over the VP for our analysis of the interpretation of objects. So, this existential closure would provide the necessary quantificational force for bare noun subjects as well. It is proposed that both subject and object originate within the VP, and can move out to the VP-external domain. The motivation for these movements are informational-structural in nature, relating in particular to the distinctions between given and new information, and default and non-default information structure.

This thesis explores the variable behavior of bare nouns in Persian. Bare singular nouns realize different grammatical functions, including subject, object and indirect object. They receive different interpretations, including generic, definite and existential readings. However, the task of understanding the reasons for, and limits on, this variation cannot be achieved without understanding a number of pivotal features of Persian sentential architecture, including Information Structure, prosody, word order, and the functions of various morphological markers in Persian. After a brief introduction, chapters 2-3 deal with bare noun objects, firstly comparing them with nominals marked with indefinite morpheme -i suffixed to the noun, and the determiner yek. A bare noun object differs from morphologically marked nominals as it shows properties associated with noun incorporation in the literature (chapter 2). Of particular interest are the discourse properties of these ‘quasi-incorporated’ nominals. With respect to the discourse transparency of Incorporated Nominals, Persian belongs to the class of discourse opaque languages within Mithun’s classification (1984). However, under certain circumstances, Persian bare nouns show discourse transparency. These circumstances are examined in chapter 3, and it is proposed that bare nouns do introduce a number neutral discourse referent. There are no overt anaphoric expressions that could match such number-neutral antecedents in Persian. But covert anaphora lack number features, and hence can serve as means to pick up a number-neutral discourse referent. Also, in case world knowledge tells us that the number-neutral discourse referent is anchored to an atomic entity or to a collection, then an overt singular pronoun or an overt plural pronoun might fit the combined linguistic and conceptual requirements, and may be used to pick up the number-neutral discourse referent. This proposal is phrased within Discourse Representation Theory. In the second half of the dissertation, the interpretation of bare nouns in different positions and with different grammatical functions are discussed. Under the independently supported hypothesis of position>interpretation mapping developed by Diesing (1992), we will see the role of the suffix -ra in indicating that an object has been moved out of VP. Following Diesing, I assume that VP-internal variables are subject to an operation of Existential Closure. In many cases, VP-external –ra-marked objects have a different interpretation to their VP-internal, non-ra-marked, counterparts, because of escaping Existential Closure. For subjects, there is no morphological marking corresponding to –ra on objects, and we have to rely on prosody and word order to determine how a VP is interpreted using theories of the interaction of accent and syntactic structure. We assume that VP-internal subjects exist, under two independent but converging assumptions. The first is prosodic in nature: Subjects can be accented without being narrowly focused; theories of Persian prosody predict then that there is a maximal constituent that contains both the subject and the verb as its head. The second is semantic in nature: Bare nouns require an external existential closure operation to be interpreted existentially, and we have to assume existential closure over the VP for our analysis of the interpretation of objects. So, this existential closure would provide the necessary quantificational force for bare noun subjects as well. It is proposed that both subject and object originate within the VP, and can move out to the VP-external domain. The motivation for these movements are informational-structural in nature, relating in particular to the distinctions between given and new information, and default and non-default information structure.

Environmental education (EE) as an approach to all education is needed to be incorporated in all the subjects of the school curriculum. In Namibia, there are Ministerial documents that support the incorporation of education About, In/ Through and For the environment within the curriculum. Even though there are documents that support this, EE continues to suffer barriers that hinder its effective incorporation into the curriculum. The findings reveal that EE in Namibia is incorporated into the traditional environmental subject homes only. The barriers that prevent the incorporation of EE into the Namibian broad curriculum for secondary schools are, amongst others, the lack of adequate teacher education programmes and the lack of interdepartmental collaboration at school level. These barriers and many others have been identified and discussed in detail in this investigation. Measures are recommended to ensure effective incorporation of EE in the Namibian broad curriculum for secondary schools. / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (Environmental Education)