This Master's Thesis deals with the issue of audio clipping and the application of sparse represenations model for the task of declipping. First, a general theory of clipping is described, followed by a brief overview of existing methods and a description of the general theory concerning sparse representations of signals and bases, respectively frames. Subsequently, two methods solving declipping problem based on sparse representations are intruduced. The first method uses the Generic proximal algorithm for convex optimization, the second one uses the Douglas-Rachford algorithm. The above mentioned methods have been programmed in the Matlab environment. The results of the declipping methods are evaluated according to SNR, PEMO-Q and also by subjective listening tests.

Ziel der Studie war die Evaluation des biomechanischen Effekts einer medialen Unterstützung bei proximalen Humerusfrakturen. An 32 unfixierten humanen Humeri, aufgeteilt in vier Plattenosteosynthesegruppen, wurde der Einfluss von inferomedialen Schrauben, dynamischen Verriegelungsschrauben und medialer Knochenspanaugmentation vom Femurkopf, im Vergleich zu einer Gruppe ohne mediale Unterstützung, getestet. Die Steifigkeit der Proben wurde bei Torsion, axialer Ausrichtung, 20° Abduktion und 20° Adduktion geprüft. Anschließend wurde über 5000 Zyklen und bis zum Versagen belastet. Verglichen wurden Steifigkeiten, interfragmentäre Bewegungen, Maximalbelastungen und Versagensursachen. Ausschließlich für die Gruppe mit Knochenspanaugmentation konnten signifikante Unterschiede, im Vergleich zu den anderen Gruppen, nachgewiesen werden. Eine Knochenspanaugmentation, mittels kortikospongiösem Span vom Hüpftkopf, bot biomechanisch eine signifikante Unterstützung der medialen Säule. Klinisch könnte das Auftreten von sekundären Repositionsverlusten möglicherweise reduziert werden. Für die Verwendung von inferomedialen oder dynamischen Schrauben ließen sich bei 2-Segmentfrakturen im biomechanischen Modell keine signifikanten Vorteile nachweisen.

Until today equine flexor tendon injuries represent a major entity within the scope of equine medicine. Since their response to treatment is often poor, they remain an important therapeutic challenge for researchers as well as clinicians. It is of great importance to emphasize the tedious nature of the natural healing response within the tendon. This inevitably ends in a repair including scar tissue formation which is inferior to the original tendon tissue especially regarding its biomechanical properties and therefore, predisposing to reinjury. The wide range of treatment strategies for tendinopathies or suspensory ligament pathologies reflects the tenacious nature of the disease as well as lack of universal therapeutic effectiveness. The use of regenerative treatment strategies opened up new prospects for the treatment of tendon injuries and showed promising results. However, research efforts are still warranted to objectively asses their efficacy. At the same time basic science concerning aetiopathogenesis and pathophysiology of equine tendon injuries is still a factor of major importance regarding the development of effective strategies for therapy and prevention. Recently, the use of regenerative medicine has rapidly increased, progressively upstaging traditional surgical treatment options for equine tendon or suspensory ligament pathologies. The aim of the present study on the one hand was the analysis of the results and evaluation of the surgical treatment options percutaneous desmoplasty and osteostixis at the origin of the suspensory ligament by means of retrospective clinical case studies. On the other hand, success of these techniques was evaluated depending on different success parameters. These included the age of the horse, duration of lameness prior to surgery, observance of a given controlled exercise program by the owners and ground conditions. In case of percutaneous osteostixis also presence of a hindlimb conformation predisposing for proximal suspensory desmitis was investigated. Part of the first retrospective study examining percutaneous desmoplasty (tendon splitting) as a single surgical treatment were 71 horses (n=85). Desmoplasty was performed at the origin of the suspensory ligament (41 cases), inferior check ligament (21 cases), superficial flexor tendon (13 cases), branch of the suspensory ligament (6 cases) or at the body of the suspensory ligament (4 cases). The second retrospective study investigated the implementation of percutaneous osteostixis at the origin of the suspensory ligament in 14 horses (n=16). Percutaneous osteostixis was carried out alone (1 case), in conjunction with desmoplasty at the origin of the suspensory ligament (7 cases) and combined with desmoplasty, neurectomy of the deep branch of the lateral plantar nerve and plantar fasciotomy (8 cases). Concerning percutaneous osteostixis overall successful outcome was achieved in 11 horses (78.6 %) respectively 12 cases (75.0 %). The various evaluated parameters showed no statistically significant influence on the success of treatment. For percutaneous desmoplasty overall successful outcome was achieved in 55 cases (67.9 %, n=81). Observance of the controlled exercise program showed a statistically significant influence on the success of treatment (n=79, p<0.05). In summary the present paper illustrates the important role of percutaneous desmoplasty in nowadays` management of tendon and suspensory ligament injuries in the horse. Furthermore, percutaneous osteostixis proved to be a valuable alternative to conservative treatment for osseous as well as soft tissue injuries at the origin of the suspensory ligament, specifically in case of recurring lesions not responding to desmoplasty alone. Therefore, despite the rapidly increasing significance of regenerative treatment strategies these traditional surgical approaches should not fall into oblivion for they still have unchanged effectiveness. Especially postoperative implementation of a controlled and gradually increasing exercise program represents an essential part of rehabilitation, highlighted by the significant connection with successfull outcome of desmoplasty shown in the present paper, as a key factor greatly contributing to the success of each form of therapy:1 EINLEITUNG 1 2 LITERATURÜBERSICHT 3 2.1 Einführung in die Thematik der equinen Sehnenerkrankungen 3 2.1.1 Anatomische Grundlagen 3 2.1.2 Histologie der Sehne 4 2.1.3 Biomechanik der Sehne 7 2.1.4 Ätiologie und Pathogenese von Sehnenerkrankungen 11 2.1.5 Mechanismus der Sehnenheilung 20 2.1.6 Grundsätzliches zur Therapie von Sehnenerkrankungen 29 2.1.7 Definitionen 32 2.2 Das perkutane Sehnensplitting beim Pferd 33 2.2.1 Grundprinzip und Indikationen 33 2.2.2 Bedeutung des postoperativen Managements 35 2.3 Einsatzgebiete der perkutanen Osteostixis im Bereich des Fesselträgerursprungs 38 2.3.1 Allgemeines zur Methodik der Osteostixis 38 2.3.2 Anatomische Verhältnisse im Bereich des FTRU 40 2.3.3 Klinisches Erscheinungsbild der PSD 42 2.3.4 Sonographische Untersuchung 43 2.3.5 Röntgenologische Untersuchung 46 2.3.6 Szintigraphische Untersuchung 47 2.3.7 Magnetresonanztomographische Untersuchung 48 2.3.8 Innervation des FTRU 49 2.3.9 Diagnostische Anästhesien 49 2.3.10 Begleitoperationen zur Osteostixis: Faziotomie, Neurektomie und Splitting 50 2.3.11 Knochenschmerz 55 2.3.12 Prädispositionen für die Entwicklung einer PSD 55 3 TIERE, MATERIAL UND METHODEN 57 3.1 Sehnensplitting 57 3.1.1 Material 57 3.1.1.1 Einschlusskriterien 57 3.1.1.2 Alters-, Geschlechts-, Nutzungs- und Rassenverteilung 57 3.1.1.3 Erkrankte Gliedmaßen und Strukturen 57 3.1.1.4 Begleitende Eingriffe 58 3.1.1.5 Vorbehandlung 58 3.1.1.6 Begleitende Behandlung 58 3.1.1.7 Folgeinformationen 58 3.1.2 Methoden 58 3.1.2.1 Diagnostik 58 3.1.2.1.1 Klinische Lahmheitsuntersuchung 58 3.1.2.1.2 Befunderhebung mittels bildgebender Verfahren 59 3.1.2.2 Durchführung 60 3.1.2.2.1 Methodik des Sehnensplittings 60 3.1.2.2.2 Postoperatives Management 61 3.1.2.2.3 Kontrolliertes Bewegungsprogramm 61 3.1.2.3 Statistik 62 3.2. Osteostixis 63 3.2.1 Material 63 3.2.1.1 Einschlusskriterien 63 3.2.1.2 Alters-, Geschlechts-, Nutzungs- und Rassenverteilung 64 3.2.1.3 Erkrankte Gliedmaßen und begleitende Eingriffe 64 3.2.1.4 Vorbehandlung 64 3.2.1.5 Begleitende Behandlung 64 3.2.1.6 Folgeinformationen 64 3.2.2 Methoden 65 3.2.2.1 Diagnostik 65 3.2.2.1.1 Klinische Lahmheitsuntersuchung 65 3.2.2.1.2 Befunderhebung mittels bildgebender Verfahren 66 3.2.2.2 Durchführung 66 3.2.2.2.1 Methodik der perkutanen Osteostixis sowie der Begleitoperationen 66 3.2.2.2.2 Postoperatives Management 68 3.2.2.2.3 Kontrolliertes Bewegungsprogramm 68 3.2.2.3 Statistik 69 4 ERGEBNISSE 70 4.1 Ergebnisse Sehnensplitting 70 4.1.1 Sehnenübergreifende Ergebnisse 70 4.1.2 Sehnenspezifische Ergebnisse 72 4.1.2.1 Splitting des Fesselträgerkörpers (FTRK, 4 Fälle) 72 4.1.2.2 Splitting des Fesselträgerschenkels (FTRS, 6 Fälle) 72 4.1.2.3 Splitting der oberflächlichen Beugesehne (OBS, 13 Fälle) 73 4.1.2.4 Splitting des Unterstützungsbandes der tiefen Beugesehne (UB-TBS, 21 Fälle) 74 4.1.2.5 Splitting des Fesselträgerursprungs (FTRU, 41 Fälle) 75 4.2 Ergebnisse Osteostixis 78 4.2.1 Fallbetrachtungen Osteostixis 79 4.2.1.1 Osteostixis ohne Begleitoperationen (1 Fall) 79 4.2.1.2 Osteostixis mit Splitting des FTRU (7 Fälle) 79 4.2.1.3 Osteostixis mit Splitting sowie Fasziotomie und Neurektomie (8 Fälle) 81 5 DISKUSSION 84 5.1. Anmerkungen zum Studienaufbau 84 5.2 Beurteilung der Ergebnisse des perkutanen Sehnensplittings 84 5.3 Beurteilung der Ergebnisse der perkutanen Osteostixis 88 5.4 Schlussfolgerungen 91 6 ZUSAMMENFASSUNG 93 7 SUMMARY 95 8 LITERATURVERZEICHNIS 97 9 DANKSAGUNG 110

Introduction: Fractures of the proximal end of the femur are one of the most frequent diagnoses. Patients with this diagnosis have to deal with performing daily activities. Both for painas well for the necessity of adherence to antiluxal measures. Thanks to this decrease thein independence from the other person. As one of the maingoals in this diploma thesis we determined means how occupational therapy canincrease self - sufficiency in this target group. As other goals, we found in formativ about the selection and financing of compensatory aids and we made a manual about this information. We focused on the factors that affect the return of patients to the home environment. Methodology: In the personal parts we chose 6 case studies (3 men and 3 women), in the averageage 73.5 years (median 72, 5), youngest 64 years, oldest 85 years. Patients underwent 5 therapies dedicated to the training of self - sufficiency of personal everyday activities (pADL). We measured the effectiveness of th erapeutic units using the Barthel Index. We observed them and found out chat compensatory aids they use for self-sufficiency Results: Probands recese daverage 33.3 points in the evaluationat the initialexamination. After graduating therapiest heave rage performance of all probands obtained at 67, 5 points. They used...

Syftet med denna studie är att genom enskilda intervjuer få kunskap om hur tio elever upplever den extra hjälp de får i form av studieverkstadens verksamhet på den skola som de går på. Hur beskriver elever att deras skolsituation påverkats (kunskapsmässigt och socialt) av deltagandet, vilka faktorer påverkar upplevelsen, och hur värderar de studieverkstaden gentemot vistelse i ordinarie klassrum respektive andra specialpedagogiska lösningar för de elever som tidigare haft sådana? Eftersom intervjuerna genomfördes på två olika skolor, en högstadie- och en gymnasieskola, som har olika upplägg på sina studieverkstäder, finns också en jämförande aspekt i arbetet. Eleverna på båda skolorna upplever antalet elever i studieverkstaden som en avgörande faktor för hur bra de kan få hjälp där. På högstadieskolan är antalet ofta lågt, och på den betydligt större gymnasieskolan ofta högt. Den andra faktorn som eleverna uppger påverkar deras möjligheter till lärande är lärarnas ämneskompetens, vilken ibland brister på högstadieskolans studieverkstad. Vikten av att utvärdera placeringarna med täta mellanrum belyses också i studien. Studien visar vidare att de effekter de intervjuade eleverna upplever av att vistas i studieverkstaden främst handlar om ökat lugn och fokus, bättre mående, bättre studieresultat och ökad förståelse av ämnet. Till skillnad från högstadieeleverna nämner gymnasieeleverna också bättre betyg som ett positivt resultat, något de anser gynnar självkänslan. Gymnasieleverna upplever det som en stressfaktor att studieverkstaden förlänger studiedagen. Samtidigt upplevs förbättrade studieresultat reducera stress. Däremot upplever varken gymnasie- eller högstadieeleverna någon större påverkan på trivseln i skolan eller relationen till klasskamraterna.

I studien undersöks svensklärares val av undervisningsmetoder och innehåll vid arbetet med skönlitteratur i kurserna Svenska 1–3, SVA 3 och SFI kurs D. Studien ämnade att svara på hur lärarna motiverar didaktiska val utifrån skolans uppdrag, vilka val lärarna gör kopplat till elevernas måluppfyllelse och utbildningsform samt hur läraren implementerar elevinflytande och medbestämmande vid skönlitterära inslag i svenskundervisningen. För att besvara frågeställningarna genomfördes tretton tematiserade kvalitativa intervjuer med verksamma svensklärare och svaren har sedan diskuterats ur ett sociokulturellt perspektiv med fokus på den proximala utvecklingszonen. Studiens resultat visar att styrdokumenten anses vara svårtolkade och frasen skönlitteratur och andra typer av texter har tolkats på flertalet olika sätt. Det resultaten visar är att eleverna inte ges likvärdig tillgång till skönlitterära texter i svenskundervisningen och att det främst beror på lärarens tolkning av styrdokumenten eller på grund av att läraren anser att eleverna, som främst företräds av studerande på yrkesprogram, anses vara för lässvaga. De övergripande resultaten visar att elever på yrkesförberedande program möts av för låga förväntningar i undervisningen i kurser som avser Svenska vilket resulterar i att en av fyra yrkeselever riskerar att inte nå måluppfyllelse i kursen Svenska 1 vilket går i linje med resultat från Skolverks kvalitetsgranskningar.

An intelligent sensor system has the potential of providing its operator with relevant information, lowering the risk of human errors, and easing the operator's workload. One way of creating such a system is by using reinforcement learning, and this thesis studies how reinforcement learning can be applied to a simple sensor control task within a detailed 3D rendered environment. The studied agent controls a stationary camera (pan, tilt, zoom) and has the task of finding stationary targets in its surrounding environment. The agent is end-to-end, meaning that it only uses its sensory input, in this case images, to derive its actions. The aim was to study how an agent using a simple neural network performs on the given task and whether behavior cloning can be used to improve the agent's performance. The best-performing agents in this thesis developed a behavior of rotating until a target came into their view. Then they directed their camera to place the target at the image center. The performance of these agents was not perfect, their movement contained quite a bit of randomness and sometimes they failed their task. But even though the performance was not perfect, the results were positive since the developed behavior would be able to solve the task efficiently given that it is refined. This indicates that the problem is solvable using methods similar to ours. The best agent using behavior cloning performed on par with the best agent that did not use behavior cloning. Therefore, behavior cloning did not lead to improved performance.

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Soil salinization is of great concern in the irrigated arid and semi-arid western United States due to its threat to sustainable agricultural productivity and thus is closely monitored. A widely accepted and traditional standard method for estimating soil salinity is the electrical conductivity of the saturated paste extracts (ECe). However, this method underestimates salinity due to ion pair formation in high ionic strength solution. Numerous studies have recommended the use of an electromagnetic induction (EMI) sensing technique to monitor field-scale soil salinity due to rapidness and non-destructiveness of the sampling. However, because the EMI measurement (ECa) is related to a host of soil properties, calibrating ECa to salinity in a non-homogeneous setting is particularly challenging. The main objective of this study is to understand the dynamics and interacting factors controlling soil salinity using an EMI sensor. Specifically, a correction is made for the underestimation of soil salinity from saturated paste extracts, and a calibration model is developed that is capable of predicting salinity directly from ECa despite the non-homogeneity of potential perturbing factors. A comparison is made of salinity measurement methods based on soil saturated pastes with respect to specific soil management goals. Results show that ion pairing exists even in low ionic strength solution and by diluting the saturated paste extracts to conductivities ≤ 0.03 dS m -1 (ECed), ion pairing is minimized. An improved salinity estimate is obtained by computing total dissolved solids (TDS, in mM) from the ECed values, and then multiplying the TDS by the dilution factor. We also developed a calibration model using quantile regression, which makes no assumption about the distribution of the errors, and which is capable of predicting low range soil salinity (such as that in calcareous soils) from ECa depth-weighted measurements (ECH25ECe). A comparison of ECe, ECed, ECH25ECe, and direct measurement of EC in soil pastes (“ Bureau of Soils Cup ” method, ECcup) across six depths, three texture groups, and the combinations of EC method and depth or texture groups, supports the use of the ECH25ECe method to rapidly and reliably monitor salinity in calcareous soils of arid and semiarid regions.

In an increasingly digitised world, the pedagogy of education is at risk of being dictated by technological advancement. As fragments of teaching practice left over from previous curricula are adapted and amalgamated into new curricula, the educational landscape becomes a sea of learning terminologies used interchangeably. In many cases these terminologies are then disconnected from an underlying understanding of what learning is and how the best possible form and quality of learning can be brought about. Two recent technological advancements in the field of education is Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) and the MakerSpace movement. However, these fields need to be engaged with as avenues of investigation in the pursuit of the highest possible learning quality outcome required by a world that is super-complex. Through comprehensive literature research, the researcher first presented an in-depth argument detailing what learning is, what the highest quality of learning is and how this learning quality can be measured. The literature revealed a particular professional practice of “facilitating lifelong authentic learning” of which the sole purpose is achieving exactly that. In this mixed method research project, an attempt was made to re-connect the technological advancement of online learning with the theoretical framework of the learning process as laid down by Vygotsky, particularly through the Zone of Proximal Development. Within the context of a MakerSpace subject, the researcher attempted to determine how the identified practice of facilitating lifelong authentic learning would ensure the increase in the quality of learning in online groups where MakerSpace learners were required to resolve a real-life challenge. An experiment then followed where a professional facilitator of learning was present in the experimental groups, while the control groups attempted to resolve the challenge un-facilitated. A comparison of the analysis of chat transcriptions indicated that on average the quality of learning was higher in facilitated groups. Interview data collected after the experiment shed light on this finding and suggested that the quality of learning in an online group increases when a facilitator of learning increases the level of difficulty of the real-life challenge as perceived by the group’s dominant participant (the person who contributes the most to the group dialogue). This not only indicated the value of Facilitating Learning in an online learning evnvironment, but also highlighted its necessity in terms of improving the quality of the learning. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2021. / Humanities Education / PhD / Unrestricted