This study originated in the phenomenon that has been observed in the South African Saddle Horse Industry of substantial investments being made over time in the absence of obvious financial or economic reward. A literature study confirmed that, internationally, investment without obvious financial and economic rewards is not unknown and at the same time it was obvious that it is a rarely studied subject. From the literature study it was also evident that this phenomenon occurs where passion and, to a lesser extent, commitment is involved. Economic models on decision making is lacking in perspective on the influence of emotions which were proven to be substantial in an emotionally-laden market, such as the South African Saddle Horse industry. Consumption theory in marketing describes consumption decisions where the consumer is so influenced by emotions that rational influences barely come into play. It is in this context that the study seeks to qualify the investment decisions in the South African Saddle Horse industry by the adaption of consumption theory to investment theory. Research on the indicated strategic phenomenon fits within the critical realism paradigm and is essentially inductive, theory building research. In this case, the adaption of consumer theory as investment theory. Qualifying the influence of emotions in the investment decision – the “why” and “how” questions about a contemporary set of events, over which the researcher has no control – indicates case study as the applicable method of research. In this research, the case study theory is built by generalising case data to prior theory seeking replication or theoretical replication. With prior theory embracing the mentioned consumer theory and case selection dictated by the information, a case study can assist to identify the motivators of the investment decision. Once qualified, the influence of emotions on the investment decision in the mentioned strategic phenomenon can be quantified. Quantifying the influence of emotions on the investment decision leaves two alternatives, the first of which is developing a data set in a statistical survey. However, neuroeconomic findings indicate that opportunity cost comparisons for decisions are supported by our emotional circuitry that is commonly below our conscious awareness. This finding has the direct implication that opportunity cost questions in retrospect do not yield reliable information. The second alternative would be to use dependable historic investment decision data series, such as auction prices. But in the South African Saddle Horse industry, only African Saddle Horse Futurity (ASF) offers any usable investment decision data series, with the AACup being the mother competition in the USA, offering a compatible data series but much more complete and evolved. Therefore, in quantifying the influence of emotions on investment decisions, ASF data and extended AACup auction data is used in an Ordinary Least Squares regression (OLS) analysis and for further calculations. In the literature study it was evident that emotions will be a major influence in investment decisions in the horse industry. This was confirmed by the multiple case study, proving applicability of consumption theory to the investment decision in the South African Saddle Horse industry. The OLS analysis rendered the magnitude of influence of emotions on the investment decision as both prohibitive and irregular on the theoretical determinants of the investment decisions. In all the research done, emotions were unanimously proven to be the determining influence on the investment decision in the South African Saddle Horse industry. But in a free market system where price equates demand and supply, the confirmed influence of emotions in the establishment of price hampers the effective distribution of scarce production resources. In this, the influence of emotions results in a cost to the industry. By manipulating the data set used in the dissertation, an indication of the historic cost of the influence of emotions in the investment decision at the ASF and AACup competitions became apparent. Also, the influence of emotions can be equally crucial in, for example, exploiting economic growth potential. For example, the Saddle Horse industry is a world-wide multimillion dollar industry, with coincidently proven and strong connections with good growth potential to South Africa’s rural areas. These connections contain sustainable development potential to improve the quality of life for many people living in these rural areas. But in order to successfully exploit this potential, more information on emotions as an economic variable is needed in stimulating the industry. In accordance with the incidence of emotions as an influence in decision making, evident in literature and this research, this argument for more information is extendable to numerous other emotionally influenced markets. Therefore, in order to improve reliability of predictions on economic investment and also economic growth, emotions as an influence have to be accounted for. / MSc (Agric), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

This research introduces a new theoretical perspective (termed the Adaptive Processing Perspective) that reexamines how consumers should think before making decisions and the optimal outcomes that result. New insights into conscious (“careful deliberation”), unconscious (“sleeping on it”), and intuitive (“going with your gut”) thought processes are provided. Across four studies, empirical evidence demonstrates that consumers can make significantly better decisions by thinking more about routine choices, using their intuition for occasional purchase decisions, and distracting themselves before making major purchase decisions. Specifically, in study 1, increased conscious thought optimized routine decision making due to increases in openness to information. In study 2, consumers using intuition optimized an occasional purchase decision by focusing attention on relevant information. Study 3 demonstrated unconscious thought to be optimal for consumers when making a major purchase decision via their engagement in associative processing. Lastly, study 4 provided further support for the Adaptive Processing Perspective by manipulating the decision setting (i.e., routine, limited, extensive) across a common product and replicating the earlier study results. Several theoretical and practical advances to the domains of information processing and consumer decision making are offered and discussed.

I argue that conscious visual experience consists in a direct and noninferential grasp of the way one’s current perceptual contact with the environment poises one to pursue various intentional plans, goals and projects. I show that such a view of visual consciousness is supported by current work in cognitive neuroscience, affords a compelling account of colour perception, and suggests a way to bridge the ‘explanatory gap’ between consciousness and the language of the natural sciences. In chapter 1, I examine the reasoning that leads to the appearance of an explanatory gap between the phenomenal and the physical in more detail, and set out the constraints on a solution that our discussion of the problem has imposed. I then sketch the two rival takes on the relationship between perception and action mentioned above – adjudicating between these two theories (and finding in favour of the action-space view) is the task of the next two chapters, and is a recurring theme throughout. Chapter 2 moves on to discuss some recent work in the neuropsychology of vision and what it might suggest about the functional role of conscious vision, and the first half of chapter 3 considers two puzzle cases concerning colour perception. Each of these discussions turns out to constitute a source of support for the actionspace view that visual perception consists in a grasp of the practical consequences of sensation, and the second half of chapter 3 sets out this view and responds to an initial range of questions and objections it might face. Chapter 4 illustrates our view via a discussion of colour perception, and chapter 5 discusses the type of grasp of practical consequences that is necessary for perceptual sensitivity to issue in conscious experience. By chapter 6, we are in a position to see how the action-space approach can help close the explanatory gap for phenomenal consciousness, and our final chapter sets out how I think this should be done. I conclude with a brief discussion of further questions and prospects for the action-space approach.

This thesis investigates how my representations of experience through arts-informed autoethnographic research are significant in establishing the pedagogical nature of place. I seek to understand how place-conscious education in a community setting can encourage students' relationships with the spaces they inhabit and lend to a more just learning environment. Many educative tools are provided and analyzed which are derived from wayfinding and psychogeographic methods. Data was collected over two months throughout the Summer of 2015 while participating in the Onward Israel service learning program in Israel and Palestine. My digital photographs and excerpts of stream-of-consciousness style poetry serve as the data set to illuminate the rich sensory encounters and art making processes indicative of experiential learning. This context-driven artwork encourages questions and dialogue about sociopolitical conflict and wars, migration and occupation. It is concerned with physical as well as psychological borders, checkpoints and boundaries. I utilized poetic and photographic inquiry as well as cognitive mapping to explore how concepts of travel are intricately linked to practices of self-reflexivity, community building and alternative curricula development outside of the formal classroom setting. This qualitative data is not a strictly defined set of interviews or statistics. Instead, vignettes of a more totalizing experience can be extracted, analyzed, dissected and/or rearranged. It is an exploration of identity, agency and untraditional ways of knowing the self/Other. I underscore how new pathways and possibilities for teaching emerge from a greater acceptance and validation of experiential knowledge and an attuned consciousness to place.

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FundaÃÃo de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Cearà / A depressÃo à uma doenÃa crÃnica, grave que afeta cerca de 350 milhÃes de pessoas no mundo. O objetivo deste trabalho foi estudar os efeitos antidepressivos do Ãcido lipÃico (ALA) associado a mirtazapina (MIRT) via mecanismos antioxidativos em modelo animal de depressÃo induzido por corticosterona. Camundongos machos adultos receberam 0,3% Tween 80, Corticosterona (CORT 20 mg/kg), MIRT (3 mg/kg), ALA (100 ou 200 mg/kg), sozinhos ou associados por 21 dias. No Ãltimo dia de tratamento os animais foram submetidos aos seguintes testes: campo aberto, labirinto em cruz elevado, suspensÃo de cauda, preferÃncia por sacarose, rota rod e tempo de sono. AlteraÃÃes oxidativas (glutationa reduzida-GSH e peroxidaÃÃo lipÃdica- MDA) e nitrito no cÃrtex prÃ-frontal (CPF), hipocampo (HC) e corpo estriado (CE); e fator neurotrÃfico derivado do cÃrebro (BDNF) no CPF e HC tambÃm foram abordadas. A administraÃÃo crÃnica de CORT desenvolveu alguns comportamentos tipo-depressivos que foram revertidos com MIRT e/ou ALA. A associaÃÃo de ALA e MIRT reverteu o efeito sedativo provocado pela administraÃÃo de MIRT sozinha, assim como a hipersonia causada pela administraÃÃo crÃnica de CORT. A administraÃÃo de CORT, ALA 200 e MIRT associados mostrou um aumento significativos nos nÃveis de GSH no cÃrtex prÃ-frontal (113%), hipocampo (90,27%) e corpo estriado (127%) quando comparado com o grupo tratado com CORT sozinha; efeitos semelhantes foram observados na peroxidaÃÃo lipÃdica e nos nÃveis de nitrito, com reduÃÃo dos nÃveis de MDA e nitrito no hipocampo e corpo estriado dos grupos tratados com a associaÃÃo de CORT, ALA 200 e MIRT quando comparados com o grupo tratado com CORT sozinha, respectivamente. No geral, ALA parece ser uma alternativa para o tratamento da depressÃo quando associado com MIRT, pois aumenta a neuroproteÃÃo e reduz o efeito colateral de sedaÃÃo. / Depression is a chronic, serious illness that affects about 350 million people worldwide. The objective of this work was to study the antidepressant effects of lipoic acid (ALA) associated with mirtazapine (MIRT) via antioxidative mechanisms in animal models of depression induced by corticosterone. Adult male mice received 0.3% Tween 80, corticosterone (Cort 20 mg / kg) MIRT (3 mg / kg), ALA (100 or 200 mg / kg), alone or associated for 21 days. On the last day of treatment the animals were subjected to the following tests: open field, elevated plus maze, tail suspension, preference for sucrose, route rod and sleep time. Oxidative changes (reduced glutathione and GSH-peroxidation lipÃdica- MDA) and nitrite in the prefrontal cortex (PFC), hippocampus (HC) and striatum (CE); and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in the CPF and HC were also addressed. Chronic administration of CORT developed some kind-depressive behaviors were reversed with MIRT and / or ALA. The association of ALA and MIRT reversed the sedative effect caused by the administration alone MIRT, as hypersomnia caused by the chronic administration of CORT. The administration CORT ALA 200 and associated MIRT showed significant increase in GSH levels in the prefrontal cortex (113%), hippocampus (90.27%) and striatum (127%) compared to the group treated with CORT alone; Similar effects were observed on lipid peroxidation and nitrite levels with reduction of MDA and nitrite levels in the hippocampus and striatum in the groups treated with the combination CORT ALA MIRT 200 and compared with the group treated with CORT alone respectively. Overall, ALA seems to be an alternative for treatment of depression associated with MIRT when, for neuroprotection increases and reduces the side effect of sedation.

<p>The attention of this paper would be to assess critically the consequences of any conscious effort to separate morality from politics giving that morality constitutes an essential and integral part of any political culture. With this understanding it becomes controversial and worrisome for any one to suggest that morality can be divorced from politics and still make a success out of the entire business of governance. The concept of Machiavellianism presents a very big challenge to this possibility in politics. I would attempt to show the dangers inherent in such a calculated effort using the Nigerian political experience as a case study</p>

The attention of this paper would be to assess critically the consequences of any conscious effort to separate morality from politics giving that morality constitutes an essential and integral part of any political culture. With this understanding it becomes controversial and worrisome for any one to suggest that morality can be divorced from politics and still make a success out of the entire business of governance. The concept of Machiavellianism presents a very big challenge to this possibility in politics. I would attempt to show the dangers inherent in such a calculated effort using the Nigerian political experience as a case study

Automobile transportation consumes a significant amount of non-reusable energy and emits emissions as by-products of fuel consumption. There has been much progress in the development of vehicle engine technology and alternative fuels to reduce the adverse impact of highway transportation on the environment. However, the research regarding the reduction of the adverse impact through highway design is still in its infancy. Furthermore, highway design manuals/guidebooks do not provide any information on environmentally-friendly designs. The primary objective of this research was to provide the tools and guidelines for a quantitative environmental evaluation in highway design. This research provided the results regarding the quantitative environmental impacts, by means of fuel consumption and emissions, of various highway geometric design conditions on the vertical grades as well as for horizontal and vertical crest curves that could be included in the highway design process. The researcher generated second-by-second speed profiles using the speed prediction models and non-uniform acceleration/deceleration models, and extracted the fuel consumption and emissions rates based on vehicle specific powers and speeds using recently developed motor vehicle emission simulator (MOVES). The generated speed profiles were matched with the extracted rates and aggregated during a trip on the grades and curves. In addition, the researcher conducted the environmental evaluation including a benefit-cost analysis with actual highway geometric data based on the proposed method and processes. The results demonstrated that fuel consumption and emissions could be significantly changed according to highway design conditions on grades and curves. Throughout the analyses, this research provides the guidelines and tools for environmental evaluations related to selected design features as a part of the highway development process. The provided guidelines and tools can reduce the uncertainty associated with the engineering judgment for environmentally-conscious highway design. Finally, this research shows the efficacy of environmentally-friendly design for sustainable (i.e., social, economical, and environmental) transportation.

In the corporations and organizations, the issue of interpersonal interaction becomes more and more important., However, However, there are very few researches about this topic either in Taiwan or global wide.The study attempts to use some fields in order to analyze lots of dynamic cases in life , such as systems thinking , organizational learning, psychology of mind, energy level ,etc. While the study was carrying on, Fred Kofman new book " Conscious Business " was published which offered more directions to discuss and develop. At last, the study found that people often trapped by no understanding of the systems or the dilemmas which Concious Business mention. That's the reason why people only see their own system but not to see others during their daily interaction.