No description available.

We examined the spatiotemporal dynamics underlying the processing of a false belief task using magnetoencephalography (MEG). Twenty adults performed a false belief task adapted for MEG. Regions of interest were selected based on source analyses on the contrast between false and true belief, and MEG source time-course reconstructions were generated and analyzed to determine the temporal architecture of neural activations specific to false belief reasoning. We found frontal, temporal and parietal regions to activate during false belief processing, confirming prior findings. We also extend previous findings by adding information about the temporal profile of neural activity during theory of mind processing, an area lacking in the literature. We found that increased frontal activity began at 100 ms bilaterally, followed by parietal regions from 200 to 330 ms and temporal regions at 350 ms, at which point frontal activity became lateralized to the right hemisphere.

This thesis considers how desire might be theorised in the twenty first century against the backdrop of New Zealand society, culture and film. Methodologically, this exploration is addressed with reference to Žižek’s return to a critique of ideology, whose conceptual basis is drawn from Marx, Althusser and Lacan, and which is significant in its analysis of contemporary desire as emanating from social conditions and constellations of power. Žižek’s challenge to call for a new Master is one that this thesis responds to enthusiastically. Such a response is posited from a location which intersects Lacanian psychoanalysis and sociological theories. The method this exploration employed focus groups and individual interviews from which talk of desire is constructed and critically explored. Focus groups and individual interviews were conducted following a viewing of the New Zealand film, Heavenly Creatures, which enabled an exploration of how participants offer competing ideological locations which can reveal the hidden and not so hidden mechanisms regulating social relations and ambiguities. The participant profiles of the focus groups were designed around key themes relating to the film: fathers of teenage daughters; those working or heavily involved within the creative industries; young women aged between 18-25; and those who grew up in Christchurch during the 1950’s. Heavenly Creatures is a film interpretation of the actual murder of Christchurch resident Honora Rieper in 1954 by her teenage daughter and this daughter’s friend. In exploring both the themes of friendship and the figure of the mother, Heavenly Creatures deliberately conflates fantasy with ideology, so that it is from this intersection that possibilities of subjective desire are confronted. When addressing desire set against this particular film, participants confront deadlocks and misrecognitions, in particular the disintegration of those ideological conditions with which they are identifying. These include the limitations of modern capitalism, concerns about the ‘environment’, the pervasive engagement with cynicism, and frustrations with the inability to intimately and socially self-express. In order to understand and articulate desire various locations are posited in the guise of subjective truth. These points of fixation are structured by the conditions of dominant social and cultural ideologies, which the participant seeks to symbolise in returning to the ambiguity of the promise of the Master’s discourse as proposed by Lacan. This thesis critically explores three of the modalities through which Lacan’s construct of the Master is revealed in participants’ talk about desire: these are the precarious position of belief, the fragmented body, and love as an ideological act. It is argued that these modalities work within discourse in such a way as to offer participants ideological personification as well as a complexity of circumstances from which they can designate the objet a (the truth of one’s desire in psychoanalytic terms) insisted by the superego. In this way these three modalities are configured as enabling a speaking, or a saying, from a position of knowledge. This position in turn insists that the subject does not have to abandon the problem of desire but rather engage with knowledge attained through confronting and developing a literacy of desire. Desire read alongside the modalities of belief, the body and love posit a contemporary ontology in which the gaze commands an ethical and somewhat moral dimension from which the subject can construct a Master which not only seeks to recognise and speak about desire, but also manage it within daily life.

A Technical Due Diligence (TDD) investigation is an important step in the process of obtaining financing, or in mergers and acquisitions, for a wind power project. The investigation, the scope of which varies depending on the stage and nature of the project, involves reviewing important documentation relating to different aspects of the project, assessing potential risks in terms of the quality of the information available and suggesting mitigation or other risk management measures where required. A TDD assessment can greatly benefit from increased objectivity in terms of the reviewed aspects as it enables a sharper focus on the important risk elements and also provides a better appreciation of the investigated parameters. This master’s thesis has been an attempt to introduce more objectivity in the technical due diligence process followed at the host company. Thereafter, a points-based scoring system was devised to quantify the answered questions. The different aspects under investigation have a complex interrelationship and the resulting risks can be viewed as an outcome of a causal framework. To identify this causal framework the concept of Bayesian Belief Networks has been assessed. The resulting Bayesian Networks can be considered to provide a holistic framework for risk analysis within the TDD assessment process. The importance of accurate analysis of likelihood information for accurate analysis of Bayesian analysis has been identified. The statistical data set for the right framework needs to be generated to have the right correct setting for Bayesian analysis in the future studies. The objectiveness of the TDD process can be further enhanced by taking into consideration the capability of the investing body to handle the identified risks and also benchmarking risky aspects with industry standards or historical precedence.

No description available.

The reason behind this essay has been to study if previous research is relevant for Jehovah’s Witnesses in Sweden and see if secularization has affected the organization or not. The empirical material is made from two qualitative group- interviews and open observations during two meetings in the Kingdom Hall. These studies were performed in Oskarshamn and Mönsterås during the month of February. The reason that these studies have been limited to Oskarshamn and Mönsterås is mainly because they were the only ones willing to do an interview.  According to previous research by James A. Beckfors and Andrew Holden, it has been shown that the Jehovah’s Witnesses hasn’t been affected by secularization, neither by new interpretations nor from the decrease of predicators. In my study, the interviewees have experienced secularization over the last 10-15 years while they are out preaching the religion. The organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Sweden has been setting up rules for the members to follow, such as not live together before marriage or not get tattoos. This is rules set up to keep a distance between the members and the society and therefore the organization avoid the secularization.

Motivation There is international agreement and recognition that the health status of the worlds' population is a cause for concern and that one of the key risk factors for many of the diseases that are increasing at an alarming rate (heart disease, diabetes, cancer) in both developed and developing countries, is diet. Despite many successes (especially in the areas of the eradication and containment of infectious disease and reduced fertility) and the huge advances in scientific research and technology, that have increased both what is known, and what can be done, for prevention and risk management, we still face what many describe as a crisis. Knowledge it seems is not always adequately reflected in public health practice. The objective of the local (Department of Health, Directorate of Food Control) and international (WHO, Codex Alimentarius) drive towards increased and improved food labelling, is that if consumers have reliable nutrition information available at the point of purchase and if they understand how their diet affects their risk of diseases, they will be able to make risk-reducing food choices. This could ultimately have a significant positive public health impact. The food industry has also expressed an interest through the concept of functional foods (food similar in appearance to conventional food that is intended to be consumed as part of a normal diet, but has been modified to subserve physiological roles beyond the provision of simple nutrient requirements), that albeit in reality financially motivated, could provide consumers with the opportunity to reduce their risks of some diseases through readily available, good-tasting diets rather than through the use of curative measures only. For the success of both these initiatives in public health terms, consumers must: o accept the link between the food that they eat and their health o actively look for and trust the messages communicated be able to correctly process and integrate the information o make a purchasing decision. This highlights the importance of in-depth consumer understanding in order to ensure that regulatory, educational and marketing strategies will affect positive behaviour change and improve health status. Little consumer research has been done in South Africa to assist all those involved (government, industry, researchers, nutrition experts I dietitians, educators) in gaining potentially important insights. Objectives Of South Africa's almost 31 million adults, some 11 million live in the metropolitan areas and so have relative exposure to most media and access to the widest range of available food products. This group is also a microcosm of the larger South Africa - being made up of all races, ages and living standards. The overall objective of this study was to investigate the beliefs and practices of South African metropolitan adults, in relation to the food and health link and the health information contained on food packages in order to consider the implications for functional foods. The study design was focussed on four key variables, namely, gender, race, age and living standard measure (LSM). Methods The study was designed to ensure that the results would be representative of the metropolitan adult (>I6 years) population and that they could be weighted and extrapolated. 2000 adults made up of 1000 Blacks. 640 Whites, 240 Coloureds and 120 Indians, with a 50150 gender split were drawn using a stratified, random (probability) sampling method in order to allow for the legitimate use of the mathematics of probability as well as to avoid interviewer bias. The study group were interviewed, face-to-face, in home, in the preferred language from English, Afrikaans, Xhosa, Zulu, Tswana, North Sotho and South Sotho, by trained field workers. A minimum 20% back-check on each interviewer's work was undertaken to ensure reliability and validity of the data. The field worker used a pre-coded questionnaire that included seventeen food related questions designed by a multidisciplinary team of marketers, dietitians, nutritionists and research specialists. The food questions used a 5-point Likert scale in order to measure attitude. The data was captured (3 questionnaire were excluded due to being incorrectly filled in) and the computer software package STATISTICA@ Release 6, which was used to perform the statistical analysis. The data was data was weighted to represent the total metropolitan population prior to analysis. Quantitative data was statistically analysed in order to generate relevant descriptive statistics, cross tabulations and statistical tests. Results The study considered four variables; gender, race (Black, White, Coloured, Indian), age (16-29, 30-44,45+) and living standards measure (LSM 2-3, LSM 4-6, LSM 7-10), to explored four statements: 1. I believe food can have an effect on my health 2. 1 always look for health information contained on the packaging of food products 3. 1 don't take any notice of health information as it is only marketing hype 4. 1 buy food that claims to contribute to my health. The overall response to the belief that food can have an effect on health was positive (54%). There was no practical significant difference between age groups and genders but there were practical significant differences between Blacks and the other race groups (Blacks having the lowest belief in the food and health link) and between the highest LSM group and the other LSM groups (LSM 7-1 0 had the strongest belief in the link between food and health and this belief decreased with decreasing LSM). Forty-two percent of respondents always look for health information on the packaging of food, but there was no practical significant difference between all the variables, however women were more likely than men to always look for health information on food packaging. Over half the respondents (51%) stated that they look for health information and that it is not only marketing hype. There was a small practical significant difference between the top and the bottom LSM group with LSM 7-10 being less sceptical about the health information on food packaging. 67% buy foods that claim to beneffi their health and there was a small practical significant difference between Blacks and Whites, with more Blacks agreeing that they buy foods that claim to contribute to health. CONCLUSION Findings from this study indicate that adult metropolitan South Africans label reading practices are influenced by a number of factors including attitudes, beliefs and practices and that there are differences based on gender, race, age and LSM which must be considered by regulators in drafting food labelling regulations; the food industry when considering and developing functional foods; and nutrition experts when planning education strategies. Whilst the labelling of foods with health information and the development of function foods might indeed potentially empower consumers to effectively reduce their risk of many chronic diseases, on its own it is not enough. Nutrition education is vital and must be planned giving due consideration to the differences in belief and practices that exist within the different gender, race, age and LSM groups found in South Africa. Food consumption patterns are influenced by consumer attitudes, beliefs, needs, lifestyles and social trends and so more multi-disciplinary research in these fields must be encouraged to find ways to improve nutritional intakes that will lead to improved health for all South Africans. / Thesis (M.Sc. (Dietetics))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2005.

The aim of this study was to explore God-belief as a source of meaning and psychological well-being qualitatively and through the review of literature. The study is embedded in the growing field of Psychology of Religion. In the first article, a literature overview regarding the field of Psychology of Religion, and specifically research done in the South African context, was reported. The key constructs spirituality and religiousness were investigated and defined. It was argued that traditional African religion and spirituality have unique characteristics and that Western, mostly Christian-based, research does not necessarily reflect the South African psycho-religious landscape. Articles published in the South African Journal of Psychology over the 10-year period 1997 to 2006 were analysed to ascertain the extent of South African research in this field. The necessity of continued research in this field in order to expand and enrich psychological discourse became clear. The second article investigated the reasons for humans' religiousness, the influence of religion on people's perspective on life and the importance of understanding the impact of religion on human functioning. It was shown that homo sapiens evolved to be religious and that religiousness therefore is a fundamental aspect of humanness. Untestable ontological and cosmological assumptions (mostly religiously informed) permeate people's worldviews and more or less unconsciously influence their decisions, their openness to new perspectives and their judgement and prejudices. This fact is not necessarily generally understood or recognised. The importance of helping professionals understanding their own assumptions and acknowledging those of their clients was illustrated in the context of education. The third article reported on the qualitative, interpretive case study in which the God-belief of a group of Christians from an African context was analysed and interpreted in terms of the participants' creation of meaning and their psychological well-being. Interviews were conducted with twelve participants, eight male and four female, ranging in age between twenty-five and sixty-five years, in sessions of between one hour and one and a half hours. The transcribed interviews, notes on personal reactions, insights, beliefs and discussions with knowledgeable individuals accumulated during the research process and noted in a research journal as well as literature were the sources of data for the thick description of the experiences of the participants. The description focused on participants' knowledge of God (God-concept), experience of their relationship with God (God-image) and their understanding of life. The contribution of their God-belief to their sense of meaning and psychological well-being was the leitmotiv of the description. The final conclusions were inter alia that the God-belief and mostly the God-image that participants hold, are a deep source of meaning, especially under unfavourable life circumstances and that aspects of participants' psychological well-being, e.g. a sense of self-worth, aspects of attachment and ability to cope with adversity, seem to stem from both the meaning that they create through their God-belief as well as the relationship they experience with their God. More South African research in the field of Psychology of Religion is called for, and professionals (e.g. therapists, clergy and educators) need to develop an understanding of and sensitivity to spirituality through their professional training. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Psychology))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2009.

The aim of this study was to explore God-belief as a source of meaning and psychological well-being qualitatively and through the review of literature. The study is embedded in the growing field of Psychology of Religion. In the first article, a literature overview regarding the field of Psychology of Religion, and specifically research done in the South African context, was reported. The key constructs spirituality and religiousness were investigated and defined. It was argued that traditional African religion and spirituality have unique characteristics and that Western, mostly Christian-based, research does not necessarily reflect the South African psycho-religious landscape. Articles published in the South African Journal of Psychology over the 10-year period 1997 to 2006 were analysed to ascertain the extent of South African research in this field. The necessity of continued research in this field in order to expand and enrich psychological discourse became clear. The second article investigated the reasons for humans' religiousness, the influence of religion on people's perspective on life and the importance of understanding the impact of religion on human functioning. It was shown that homo sapiens evolved to be religious and that religiousness therefore is a fundamental aspect of humanness. Untestable ontological and cosmological assumptions (mostly religiously informed) permeate people's worldviews and more or less unconsciously influence their decisions, their openness to new perspectives and their judgement and prejudices. This fact is not necessarily generally understood or recognised. The importance of helping professionals understanding their own assumptions and acknowledging those of their clients was illustrated in the context of education. The third article reported on the qualitative, interpretive case study in which the God-belief of a group of Christians from an African context was analysed and interpreted in terms of the participants' creation of meaning and their psychological well-being. Interviews were conducted with twelve participants, eight male and four female, ranging in age between twenty-five and sixty-five years, in sessions of between one hour and one and a half hours. The transcribed interviews, notes on personal reactions, insights, beliefs and discussions with knowledgeable individuals accumulated during the research process and noted in a research journal as well as literature were the sources of data for the thick description of the experiences of the participants. The description focused on participants' knowledge of God (God-concept), experience of their relationship with God (God-image) and their understanding of life. The contribution of their God-belief to their sense of meaning and psychological well-being was the leitmotiv of the description. The final conclusions were inter alia that the God-belief and mostly the God-image that participants hold, are a deep source of meaning, especially under unfavourable life circumstances and that aspects of participants' psychological well-being, e.g. a sense of self-worth, aspects of attachment and ability to cope with adversity, seem to stem from both the meaning that they create through their God-belief as well as the relationship they experience with their God. More South African research in the field of Psychology of Religion is called for, and professionals (e.g. therapists, clergy and educators) need to develop an understanding of and sensitivity to spirituality through their professional training. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Psychology))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2009.

This thesis examines the effects of linguistic input on the development of children’s epistemic concepts. It draws upon two fundamental questions in the field of cognitive development: (a) whether distinctions between automatic and controlled forms of cognitive processing are indicative of underlying conceptual differences, and (b) whether language is critical to the process of concept development. To establish the background of the current research, a summary of how these theoretical questions have been addressed in other fields of cognitive psychology is first provided (Chapter 1). These questions are then re- examined within the specific domain of epistemic concept development (Chapter 2). Changes in false-belief processing that occur between infancy and the early preschool years are discussed in relation to two competing theories of false-belief development. A framework to explain how language promotes children’s transition between automatic and controlled forms of processing is then provided. It is suggested that language facilitates change by both reducing the cognitive demands associated with controlled response tasks as well as assisting with the formation of robust epistemic representations. An empirical study that was designed to examine the effects of epistemic language (i.e., verbs and syntax) on children’s automatic and controlled processing of belief is then described (Chapters 3 to 5). Eighty-four children (Mage = 3;5 years), who initially failed elicited measures of false-belief, were trained with visual contexts of true- and false-belief. The critical manipulation across three conditions was the linguistic input presented in conjunction with these contexts. Children heard narrations that contained either (a) the description of an agent’s actions without an epistemic verb, (b) a familiar epistemic verb (thinks) across both contexts, or (c) the familiar epistemic verb in contexts of true-belief and a novel epistemic verb (gorps) in contexts of false-belief. Results demonstrated a significant advantage for children who were trained with epistemic verbs on spontaneous measures of false-belief (i.e., anticipatory gaze). Significant effects of epistemic verb exposure were also demonstrated in novel contexts of belief induction. Implications of these findings are discussed in relation to theories that make distinct predictions about the role of language in epistemic concept development (Chapter 6).