The goal of this work reported here is to test the limits of the ECPSSR theory in the transition region of the low Z1/Z2.

Doctor of Philosophy / Biochemistry Interdepartmental Program / Antje Philine Wangemann / Mutations of SLC26A4 are the most common cause of the hearing loss associated with enlargement of the vestibular aqueduct. SLC26A4 encodes pendrin, an anion exchanger expressed in the cochlea, the vestibular labyrinth, and the endolymphatic sac of the inner ear. Slc26a4Δ/Δ mice, devoid of pendrin expression, develop an enlarged membranous labyrinth which leads to the failure to develop hearing, thereby recapitulating the human disease. Identifying the ionic composition of the endolymph and evaluating the importance of pendrin expression at various sites are initial steps towards developing strategies for preventing enlargement of the endolymph volume and subsequently restoring the inner ear functions. The major aims of the present study are 1) To determine the ionic composition of inner ear fluids during the developmental phase in which the enlargement of the endolymph volume occurs; 2) To test the hypothesis that pendrin expression in the endolymphatic sac is more important than its expression in the cochlea and the vestibular labyrinth. Here, we determined the Na+ and K⁺ concentrations in the cochlea and the endolymphatic sac with double-barreled ion-selective electrodes and generated a mouse model that restores pendrin expression in the endolymphatic sac while lacking expression in the cochlea and the vestibular labyrinth. High Na⁺ and low K⁺ concentrations were found in the cochlear endolymph during the embryonic stage. A rise of the K⁺ concentration along with a decline of the Na⁺ concentration occurred shortly before birth. The site-specific restoration of pendrin to the endolymphatic sac prevented enlargement and rescued hearing and balance. In conclusion, these data demonstrate that endolymph, in the phase of luminal enlargement during the embryonic development, is a Na⁺-rich fluid that is modified into a K⁺-rich fluid just before birth; restoration of pendrin in the endolymphatic sac is sufficient for developing normal inner ear function. Furthermore, these data suggest enlargement of endolymph volume caused by the loss of Slc26a4 is a consequence of disrupted Na⁺ absorption. Moreover, pharmacological strategies that correct fluid transport, as well as spatially and temporally limited restorations of pendrin, might restore normal inner ear functions in humans carrying mutations of SLC26A4.

M.Tech. (Architectural Technology) / This thesis is an attempt at changing the urban visions of the inner-city of Johannesburg, in particular Marshalltown. Through the generation of a new urban network/ transport orientated development (T.O.D) within the inner-city , the underlying aim of this thesis is to enhance the inner-city of Johannesburg and to promote a more sustainable way of life for it's current and future residents . Essentially, this thesis is an urban regeneration project which re-appropriates existing building stock within the inner city, in hope of promoting Marshalltown as a vibrant, safe , liveable, dynamic and sustainable environment . This thesis favours the compact city approach, which promotes high density , mixed use development, public transport and community living. The proposed architectural intervention for this thesis deals with the appropriation of an existing auto and general shop situated on Anderson street , Marshalltown, and converts it into a mixed-use building which aims to improve and enhance the quality of life with in the precinct .

This thesis is a description and analysis of work that I produced during my Gradate studies at the University of New Orleans. The central theme of these works is the common human experience of inner dialogue, an interior experience. Through prints and sculpture I produce stand-ins for the body. These objects are meant to invite the viewer to sense recognizable human traits and to experience the works as having been "lived in."

Student Number : 9907324E - MSc research report - School of Architecture - Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment / This dissertation explores poverty in the inner city of Johannesburg. The World Bank perspectives on describing poverty have been adopted as a theoretical framework for understanding poverty in the inner city. The report looks at the local government’s planning framework for the inner city, and through Flyvberg’s theory of power and rationality, critically assess the potential of the RSDF to alleviate poverty in the inner city. Through Healey’s collaborative planning theory, the dissertation looks at possibility of improving poverty alleviation in the inner City of Johannesburg. Views were obtained from planning officials and community based organisations engaged in development of the poor. Additionally, statistical information from census 1996 and 2001 provide the reader with concrete figures on poverty in the inner city of Johannesburg.

Thesis is submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of Master of Urban Design to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, School of Architecture and Planning at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2015 / This research report demonstrates how an enabling framework can be applied as a means to address morphological issues in a manner that also fulfils certain existing urban policy objectives. The aim of the research is to assess the extent to which an enabling framework applied in this way can create environments that are in line with the core values of the urban design profession. The morphological issues in question are primarily due to the continued existence of the railway lines in the middle of the Johannesburg CBD. The policies in question, presented in the form of spatial development frameworks (SDFs), are those of the City of Johannesburg (COJ) and the Gauteng Provincial Government (GPG). The enabling framework is an approach to settlement making that is characterised by three aspects. The first is its end product, a movement-oriented spatial framework known as the organising concept. The second aspect is the enabling framework’s open ended approach, which holds that the city is an act of will: that a city can be shaped proactively by a single idea and that the idea need not be detailed in order for it to be applied. Lastly, the enabling framework is distinct in its understanding of participation, which is described as democratic feedback: an infinite number of responses to the organising concept that includes even the production of alternate plans. It is argued in this report that these three aspects of the enabling framework align well with the existing policy context in Johannesburg, where there is emphasis on spatial planning (with a strong transport component), on an open ended approach, and on participatory approaches to planning. The report assesses the extent to which the application of the enabling framework in this context can create an environment that espouses urban design principles. This is done in three steps: demonstrating how an enabling framework is constituted and how it may be applied; demonstrating possible responses to it; and then evaluating these responses on the basis of imageability (Lynch, 1975) and responsiveness (Bentley et al, 1985). In general, the findings from this assessment indicate that enabling frameworks may be more effective at addressing imageability than they are at creating responsiveness.

Informal street trading has played a role in the decline of the inner city. In restoring the inner city to its splendor and attracting people plus investments back into it, there has been an acknowledgement of informal street trading and a move to organise the activity. The City of Johannesburg has taken action towards dealing with informal street trading within the CBD by having trading and non-trading zones, constructing markets and providing stalls along pavements in busy streets from where traders can sell. This study was carried out as a response to the major issue at hand of cleaning up the city and ridding the streets of informal traders and only letting them trade in a controlled manner preferably in enclosed markets. While not dwelling on matters of whether regulating traders is good or bad, the main purpose of the study was to probe into the systemisation of informal street trading in the CBD, further investigating the alternative of a street market as that which can be done in other parts of the inner city as a means of keeping the vibrancy of the city through the provision of minimal infrastructure. Hence, this study explored the functionality of a street market plus certain issues pertaining to informal street trading in terms of what is being done in regulating the activity, whether trading permits are being issued and whether traders are more secure trading from designated trading areas. The outcomes were then used to outline any lessons learned from the case study that can in turn be applied or be used as an insight to other parts of the inner city. In analysing informal street trading in the inner city and Kerk Street, street market it was shown that the provision of minimal infrastructure through a street market enables informal street trading to be controlled and managed in a well organised open environment while maintaining a vibrant area in which both traders and passer-bys are able to interact.

Thesis advisor: Devin Pendas / Ernst Juenger lived through almost the entire 20th century. This longevity has placed him at the center of many of the most defining moments of modern German history. It is not, however, simply his longevity but his attitudes that have caused such a controversy to grow up around him. A staunch nationalist and one might venture to say, war-monger, during the First World War and a virulent enemy of the Weimar Republic, many historians have classified him as a Nazi author. This thesis explores the relationsihp of Ernst Juenger to the National Socialists in the context of his writing and political leanings between the First World War and the end of the Second. Without understanding the integral differences between his ideology and that of the NSDAP (namely their divergence on the issues of racial purity, parliamentarianism, communism, the use of power, and the position of art)one cannot appreciate his place in history and his perspective on Germany. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2006. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: History. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

by Tong Shiu Sing Dominic. / Parallel title in Chinese characters. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 236-241). / Acknowledgements --- p.iv / Abstract --- p.v / Chapter 1 --- Open Systems and Quasinormal Modes --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1.1 --- Non-Hermitian Systems --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1.2 --- Optical Cavities as Open Systems --- p.3 / Chapter 1.1.3 --- Outline of this Thesis --- p.6 / Chapter 1.2 --- Simple Models of Open Systems --- p.10 / Chapter 1.3 --- Contributions of the Author --- p.14 / Chapter 2 --- Completeness and Orthogonality --- p.16 / Chapter 2.1 --- Introduction --- p.16 / Chapter 2.2 --- Green's Function of the Open System --- p.19 / Chapter 2.3 --- High Frequency Behaviour of the Green's Function --- p.24 / Chapter 2.4 --- Completeness of Quasinormal Modes --- p.29 / Chapter 2. 5 --- Method of Projection --- p.31 / Chapter 2.5.1 --- Problems with the Usual Method of Projection --- p.31 / Chapter 2.5.2 --- Modified Method of Projection --- p.33 / Chapter 2.6 --- Uniqueness of Representation --- p.38 / Chapter 2.7 --- Definition of Inner Product and Quasi-Stationary States --- p.39 / Chapter 2.7.1 --- Orthogonal Relation of Quasinormal Modes --- p.39 / Chapter 2.7.2 --- Definition of Hilbert Space and State Vectors --- p.41 / Chapter 2.8 --- Hermitian Limits --- p.43 / Chapter 2.9 --- Numerical Examples --- p.45 / Chapter 3 --- Time-Independent Perturbation --- p.58 / Chapter 3.1 --- Introduction --- p.58 / Chapter 3.2 --- Formalism --- p.60 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Expansion of the Perturbed Quasi-Stationary States --- p.60 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- Formal Solution --- p.62 / Chapter 3.2.3 --- Perturbative Series --- p.66 / Chapter 3.3 --- Diagrammatic Perturbation --- p.70 / Chapter 3.3.1 --- Series Representation of the Green's Function --- p.70 / Chapter 3.3.2 --- Eigenfrequencies --- p.73 / Chapter 3.3.3 --- Eigenfunctions --- p.75 / Chapter 3.4 --- Numerical Examples --- p.77 / Chapter 4 --- Method of Diagonization --- p.81 / Chapter 4.1 --- Introduction --- p.81 / Chapter 4.2 --- Formalism --- p.82 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- Matrix Equation with Non-unique Solution --- p.82 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- Matrix Equation with a Unique Solution --- p.88 / Chapter 4.3 --- Numerical Examples --- p.91 / Chapter 5 --- Evolution of the Open System --- p.97 / Chapter 5.1 --- Introduction --- p.97 / Chapter 5.2 --- Evolution with Arbitrary Initial Conditions --- p.99 / Chapter 5.3 --- Evolution with the Outgoing Plane Wave Condition --- p.106 / Chapter 5.3.1 --- Evolution Inside the Cavity --- p.106 / Chapter 5.3.2 --- Evolution Outside the Cavity --- p.110 / Chapter 5.4 --- Physical Implications --- p.112 / Chapter 6 --- Time-Dependent Perturbation --- p.114 / Chapter 6.1 --- Introduction --- p.114 / Chapter 6.2 --- Inhomogeneous Wave Equation --- p.117 / Chapter 6.3 --- Perturbative Scheme --- p.120 / Chapter 6.4 --- Energy Changes due to the Perturbation --- p.128 / Chapter 6.5 --- Numerical Examples --- p.131 / Chapter 7 --- Adiabatic Approximation --- p.150 / Chapter 7.1 --- Introduction --- p.150 / Chapter 7.2 --- The Effect of a Varying Refractive Index --- p.153 / Chapter 7.3 --- Adiabatic Expansion --- p.156 / Chapter 7.4 --- Numerical Examples --- p.167 / Chapter 8 --- Generalization of the Formalism --- p.176 / Chapter 8. 1 --- Introduction --- p.176 / Chapter 8.2 --- Generalization of the Orthogonal Relation --- p.180 / Chapter 8.3 --- Evolution with the Outgong Wave Condition --- p.183 / Chapter 8.4 --- Uniform Convergence of the Series Representation --- p.193 / Chapter 8.5 --- Uniqueness of Representation --- p.200 / Chapter 8.6 --- Generalization of Standard Calculations --- p.202 / Chapter 8.6.1 --- Time-Independent Perturbation --- p.203 / Chapter 8.6.2 --- Method of Diagonization --- p.206 / Chapter 8.6.3 --- Remarks on Dynamical Calculations --- p.208 / Appendix A --- p.209 / Appendix B --- p.213 / Appendix C --- p.225 / Appendix D --- p.231 / Appendix E --- p.234 / References --- p.236

The Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) (1964 – 1990) was abolished by the Education Reform Act, 1988. This ended an unitary system of education that had existed in inner London for over a hundred years. This thesis examines the question of the political reasons and motivations for the ILEA’s abolition, considering both the move to the right by the Conservative party which abolished it, and the move to the left by the Labour party. In effect the polarisation of politics left little room for the form of pragmatic politics and policies which had enabled the ILEA to develop under previous Conservative and Labour administrations. Under these conditions the radical step to abolish the ILEA became possible. Given this political climate the question is asked as to whether there were good grounds for the abolition of the ILEA, over and above ideological considerations. Two strategies are adopted to answer this question. The first examines the history and processes of policy making with reference to the support for Special Educational Needs and Adult, Further and Higher Education. These may be considered ‘success stories’ while a third case, that of William Tyndale, considers whether there were also weaknesses in the ILEA’s policy processes. The second examines the claims that the ILEA tolerated low standards in education and failed to give value for money. It is concluded that the evidence does not sustain the claims made against the ILEA and that therefore, its demise can better be explained by the polarisation of politics at the time.