The relationship between people and nature has long been suffering from a cultural disconnect. In truth, nature is far more readily likened to travel than it is to everyday life; synonymous, as it is, with those faraway ideals beyond the everyday reach of an urban dweller. However, urban environments are teeming with a range of plants and animals, known as urban nature, thus providing the opportunity to shed these exotic associations in favour of a far more accessible experience. In order to do so, the form of contemporary urban nature photography will be examined in this thesis, where any representational trends found to be inhibiting its development will be identified, and ultimately challenged. A combination of photographic practice and reflective analysis was used to challenge these problematic trends. Five experiments were carried out. These served to yield a set of photographs which developed alternative representations of the urban nature subject. The resulting photographs of each experiment were subjected to a means of reflection; based on Gary Rolfe’s three stage method but refocused for compatibility with photographic practice, where observations were drawn from one experiment so as to guide the direction of the following experiment. These experiments culminated in a final project: a definitive body of photographs that served to fuse the findings of each experiment into an alternative aesthetic. Identity became a critical theme underlining the representations of the urban nature subject in this thesis, for the displacement of photographic information began to instil the subject with - to some extent - otherworldly sensibilities. This process challenged the active predisposition toward naturalism in urban nature photography, and began to direct such tendencies toward a much broader aesthetic landscape; engaging with unreserved artistic ideologies so as to develop exclusive representations of the urban nature subject.

The thesis presents a perspective on the possibility of harnessing sociocognitive terminology and related practices to the aim of describing philosophical terminology. In this case, the terminology of the radical constructivist philosopher Ernst von Glasersfeld is surveyed as a starting point. The experimental terminological records produced are re-incorporated into the theoretical basis constituted by the thesis. Therefore, its aim can be seen as twofold; the description of philosophical terminology also entails theory construction. The practice described can be seen as regenerative theory construction. It incorporates elements of formulation and of codification/ language engineering in terms of contemporary computational possibilities. In terms of its theoretical basis, the project extends not only to the terminology used in the corpus texts but also to concepts and terms needed to understand these in the first place. The outlook can be described as heuristic and experimental. The approach breaks down to the following sub-problems. Each can be seen as characteristic for terminology description in the human sciences: (1) The idea of conceptual entities and concept description needs to be adjusted to the field of experience. This starts from sociocognitive terminology and incorporates the anthropological view of concept analysis. (2) The conceptual entity of stereotype has to be accounted for, as the variance of the descriptions of immaterial objects suggests that they can only be apprehended in a radically simplified manner. (3) The application of prototype theory employed as by sociocognitive theory and the Aristotelian concept theory of (post-)classical terminology research needs to be adapted to the description of ideal types. This is compressed into the concept of scientificity. (4) The principles developed need to be compressed into the conventional categories of principle and approach. These categories need to be set in relation to both philosophical concepts and experience. (5) This design of a possible practice needs to be adapted to existing procedures. The existing procedures may be in need of clarification or redefinition against the background of their usage in non-standard contexts. (6) To facilitate this mutual adaptation, peculiarities of the context of philosophical terminography are explored and compressed under the concept of disciplinarity. To this, there is a declarative aspect and a procedural one. (7) The procedural approach to disciplinarity develops an understanding of the intentional aspect of agenda and interest. These orient the development of potential consensus about disciplinarity within the constraints of context and therefore the apparent identity of (sub- (sub-))cultures inside the context. (8) Following these observations, the overall theoretical and methodological construct is tested against exemplary cases. To conclude, a practice for implementing these considerations is suggested. It includes the use of text fragments as units for textographic philosophical terminography and an understanding of computational information management practices appropriate to its principles.

The study of stem cells has received considerable attention in forming many different tissue types, and gives hope to many patients as it provides great potential for discovering treatments and cures to many diseases such as Parkinson's disease, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease, cancer, spinal cord injuries and diabetes. This study was concerned with developing algorithms that analyses microscope images of stem cells harvested from the bone marrow or dental pulp of a rabbit, expanded in the laboratory at the Tissue Engineering Center in Alexandria, Egypt, and then transplanted into subcutaneous pouches of the rabbit. The research aimed to detect automatically as soon as osteogenic differentiated stem cells were ready to be implanted in the defective parts, thereby avoiding the cells becoming damaged by bacterial infection. A further requirement was that the algorithms would not use traditional (chemical) markers which eventually lead to the sample being discarded as it dies after adding the marker. A total of 36 microscopy images were obtained from seven separate experiments each lasting over 10 days, and the clinicians visually classified 18 images as showing not-ready osteogenic differentiated stem cells and the remaining images showing a variety of cells ready for implantation. The ready cells typically appeared as a colony, or spread all over the image interconnecting together to form a layer. Initially, image pre-processing and feature extraction techniques were applied to the images in order to try and identify the developing cells, and a t-test was applied to the total cell area in each image in an attempt to separate the not-ready and ready images. While there was a significant difference between not-ready images and the ready images which showed the colony shaped characteristics, there was no significant difference between not-ready images and ready images with the spreading interconnecting layer shape, and so more sophisticated classification techniques were investigated. As the differentiated stem cells are effectively texture based images, each of the 36 images were divided into quadrants to give a total of 144 images to increase the image dataset. Several sets of texture parameters were derived from the grey-scale histogram statistics, Grey-Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM), and Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) spatial frequency components of the images. Some of these parameters were used with traditional classification techniques including cross-correlation, and Euclidean distance measures to try and classify the texture relative to the first image (not-ready) in each experiment and the other images (not-ready and ready) in the experiment. The success rate using cross-correlation was 70%, and 68% for the Euclidean distance approach. Secondly, intelligent classification techniques using Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) were considered, using the various texture parameters as inputs to a feed-forward 1-hidden layer MLP using Back-propagation of Errors for training. The ANN approach gave the better results, with 77% using the grey-scale histogram statistics, 73% for GLCM, and 92% for the DCT with 70 spatial frequency components. It was observed for each of the experiments that images became classified as ready for implantation after approximately 10 days, and then remained ready for the rest of the experiment.

The debates related to the representation of the mentally ill in the media have been wide ranging over the last 20 years. Emergent representations have often been stigmatizing, claiming that the mentally ill are violent and dangerous. This study used an emergent methodological design to explore what the current representations of the mentally ill were and identify a case study from the available representations. It then examined the influence that the case study had on the thoughts and practice of experienced mental health practitioners. The study involved 8 practitioners and identified thoughts influenced by reading the case study and an academic article. Practitioner’s thoughts were captured over 3 separate interviews and by practitioners providing written reflections. At the last interview, practitioners were asked to provide comments as to what the experience of taking part in the study had meant to them. Generic themes related to risk, blame and professionalism all emerged. The study also found that practitioners were able to reflect on the influence that the material had on them, finding that only after discussing the reflections in the interviews that they became aware of some of their defensive thoughts and actions. The outcome of the study is that the media continue to present a negative representation of the mentally ill and mental health care, and that practitioner’s thoughts and actions are influenced by the media representation.

This thesis examines the nature of the relationship between Shelley and the thought, politics, and discursive practices of Owenism and Chartism. Its objects of analysis are Owenite periodicals and Chartist newspapers, which I theorise as active in the process of transmission and reception. This thesis locates the reception and transmission of Shelley’s poetry and politics within the broader context of the movements’ political and social commitments. It makes an original contribution to knowledge by demonstrating that the movements used Shelley’s poetry critically and with discrimination. It also argues that Owenite and Chartist approaches to Shelley changed as the movements developed over time in response to historical pressures. I argue that a cultural materialist approach enables us to reconsider the nature of Shelley’s influence and popularity within these movements, something that has become a critical commonplace. It also allows us to distinguish between Owenite and Chartist ‘Shelleys’. I argue that the Owenite periodicals the Crisis and the New Moral World produced a qualitatively different Shelley from the one that emerged in Chartist newspapers such as the Northern Star. Although there was a degree of overlap between the two movements in terms of social commitments and personnel, the parameters set by the formal qualities and discursive strategies of the movements’ print cultures allowed different Shelleys to emerge within them. In terms of content, the Owenites quoted Shelley’s poetry to support their social theories and the most frequently quoted poems were Queen Mab and The Revolt of Islam. The Chartists also used Queen Mab, but were less interested in a feminist poem like Revolt and more interested in poems that allowed them to articulate class conflict. I account for such differences within my broader argument: that the two movements had qualitatively different conceptions of the possibilities of language and aesthetics, and different approaches to social conflict.

The central aim of this thesis was to develop new tracking software employing various image tracking algorithms for tracking the speckled movement of the tendon image captured using dynamic B-mode ultrasound imaging. The algorithms were selected based on the literature related to the tracking of images captured using ultrasound imaging. Experiments were carried out to validate these tracking algorithms in order to enable development of the tracking software. The experiments conducted paralleled the objectives in designing, developing, experimenting and implementing the image-tracking algorithm to track movement of the human tendon in vivo within the speckled ultrasound images. The development of the tracking software focuses on solving the problems of tracking the ultrasound images as well as analysing the tracking movement frame-by-frame to produce useful measurements that can be used to describe the localised mechanical and structural properties of the human tendon. The algorithms tested were Normalised Cross Correlation (NCC), Mean Square Error (MSE), optical flow – Lucas-Kanade (LK) and combination of NCC and MSE (NCCMSE) selected by signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and were tested on both active and passive movements of the patella tendon (knee) and the medial gastrocnemius tendon (ankle). The comparison of the algorithms led to the identification of a single algorithm giving optimal result. The results from all tested algorithm showed NCC to be the closest match to the standard manual measurement. NCC was also the fastest among the algorithms tested and contained fewer errors in tracking. For NCC algorithm, various sizes of the region of interest (ROI) block were also tested and found that 15x15 pixels ROI block size gave the optimum measurement, which was close to the standard manual measurement. The threshold levels also indicated that >0.90 to be the optimum level for optimum tracking. The 2- ROI tracking analysis were also explored to look at the tracking performances when tracking at two different regional sites of the tendon simultaneously, and again the  NCC performed better with 15x15 ROI block size and comparable to the results obtained from the standard manual measurement. Lastly, multiple layers of the tendon were also explored to look at the excursion of the anterior, midsection and posterior layers of the tendon during ramped isometric contraction. This experiment uses all the settings found from previous experiment results, and applied to look at the mechanical properties of the human tendon. The experiments showed that the anterior gave the highest mean stain followed by the mid section and the smallest mean strain was found at the posterior proximal. The experiment also looked at the distal strain, with the result showing that the posterior gave the highest mean strain followed mid section and anterior layer gave the smallest mean strain. The experiment also looked at the performance of posterior layers and distal layers at 50 and 100% force levels. The experimental results showed that the NCC to be the optimum-tracking algorithm. The method described here has the potential to improve clinical knowledge relating to the tendon mechanical properties. The information generated by the tracking algorithm could help to give further insight into the aetiology of tendon injury, repair, response to various training interventions and the time course of tissue adaptation with disease.

Science discovery centres and science museums have been considered one of the most important institutions in the public understanding of science and technology (Lewenstein 2001). However, science discovery centres attract few teenage visitors. Visitation to cultural attractions has often been dominated by visitors with a higher socio-economic status and a higher educational background (Rowe 2011). It is nonetheless the case that few teenagers visit science discovery centres, regardless of their socio-economic background. Prior research into the motivations of adult visitors to museums has indicated that cultural factors, which may be correlated with demographics, but are not determined by them, can explain why some people visit and some do not (Merriman 1991, Hood 1983). Further research has suggested more nuanced explanations relating to personal identity issues (Rounds 2006, Falk 2006, Falk 2011) and agendas (Doering and Pekarik 1996). Much of the previous research that has been undertaken focuses on the museum cultural landscape and adult visitors. This research provides an investigation into teenage attitudes towards, and perceptions of, Techniquest Science Discovery Centre in Cardiff, with a focus on how they perceive informal science learning and the relationship between education and entertainment. The study used a mixed-methods approach (Creswell 2006) utilising an attitude survey (n=647) and a series of focus groups (n=39) with teenagers. Statistical and thematic analysis was applied to the resulting data. The research found that the majority of teenagers had complex interpretations of Techniquest, in which prior experience of it shaped perceptions of what it could offer them now. Although these interpretations encompassed a mixture of structural, personal, and situational factors, key to their interpretation was the memory of having had to negotiate various social roles when at the centre. These roles often challenged their personal entry agendas. The teenagers demonstrated a 'performative’ element (Goffman 1959, vom Lehn 2006) in their behaviour, which was based on social interaction with others and was also connected to how they ‘framed’ the situation (as education or entertainment or both). This was linked to an idea of 'identity maintenance', whereby they sought to preserve social and situational experiences that they had predefined. While it was found that many of the younger teenagers saw a more synergic relationship between education and entertainment, the older teenagers had a more complex and ambivalent view; they saw the science discovery centre as both a leisure destination and a school resource and identified some conflict between these two things. This study provides much needed data and analysis that can inform future practice and improve engagement with teenage audiences in science discovery centres.

Within the UK, the Gambling Act 2005 remains the primary piece of legislation that governs how the gambling industry is regulated. The Act established the following licensing principles upon which gambling practices should be based: that gambling should not be a source of crime or disorder, be associated with crime or disorder or be used to support crime; gambling should be conducted in a fair and open way; and children and other vulnerable people should not be harmed or exploited. Reflecting the general principles of corporate citizenship, the Gambling Act 2005 implies that those organisations which provide gambling products and services should integrate ethics and social responsibility within their operational and strategic frameworks and within their corporate governance. This thesis focuses on employee and consumer perceptions of responsible gambling in general, and specifically in terms of the utility of responsible gambling tools that are available to them. It reviews literature relating to corporate social responsibility and responsible gambling from a variety of perspectives ranging from those who propose that the ultimate responsibility rests with the consumer to those who recommend that gambling organisations should be able to demonstrate compliance with responsible gambling initiatives. The primary data analysis is based on two studies: one focusing on responsible gambling perceptions of 17 employees from a leading Internet gambling provider; and a second study based on 425 consumer perceptions of responsible gambling provisions which were elicited using an Internet based questionnaire. The interviews were analysed using thematic analysis whilst statistical applications including linear regression and multinomial regression were used to analyse questionnaire responses. The analysis highlights factors that undermine the current approach of responsible gambling which is based on the principle of self-identification, self-help and self-regulation by the consumer. For example, it proposes that employee and consumer perceptions of responsible gambling are based on the following four components: perceptions of potential conflicts of interest with a system; willingness to engage with responsible gambling tools; the perceived effectiveness of the responsible gambling systems and the level of responsibility associated with marketing activities. In addition, it distinguishes between financial motives in terms of those who gamble to earn income and those who gamble to win money and it highlights that human factors, such as the need for autonomy and mastery are as significant as social, financial, escape and arousal factors in influencing an individual’s decision to gamble. The study recommends a review of the way in which gambling addiction is diagnosed and research and treatment are funded. This will include challenges for policy makers and providers of gambling products and services in terms of how responsible gambling may further be improved in the future.

Thesis (MArch (Prof)) -- University of Pretoria, 2008. / Abstract in English. Includes bibliographical references.

Human localisation of sound in enclosed spaces is a cross-disciplinary research topic, with important applications in auditory science, room acoustics, spatial audio and telecommunications. By combining an accelerated model of $3$D sound propagation in rooms with a perceptual model of spatial processing, this thesis provides an integrated framework for studying sound localisation in enclosed spaces on the horizontal plane, with particular emphasis on room acoustics applications. The room model is based on the finite difference time domain (FDTD) method, which has been extended to include physically-constrained sources and binaural receivers based on laser-scanned listener geometries. The underlying algorithms have been optimised to run on parallel graphics hardware, thus allowing for a high spatial resolution, and accordingly, a significant decrease of numerical dispersion evident in the FDTD method. The perceptual stage of the model features a signal processing chain emulating the physiology of the auditory periphery, binaural cue selection based on interaural coherence, and a final decision maker based on supervised learning. The entire model is shown to be capable of imitating human sound localisation in different listening situations, including free field conditions and at the presence of sound occlusion, diffraction and reflection. Results are validated against subjective data found in the literature, and the model's applications to the fields of room acoustics and spatial audio are demonstrated and discussed.