A narrative qualitative research design was used to understand the journeys of three lesbians with Oneness Pentecostal backgrounds who have reconciled their religious beliefs with their sexual orientation. Three participants were selected who met the following criteria: (a) the participant is a lesbian female who (b) grew up in a Oneness Pentecostal church and (c) has reconciled being a lesbian with her religious beliefs, and who is (d) willing to discuss her outing process. These participants were interviewed. The interview questions were submitted to participants prior to the scheduled interviews. The interviews began with an open-ended inquiry. In answer to the research question, the three participants’ stories revealed that reconciliation journeys are unique and complicated. The motivation to embark on a journey of reconciliation of religious beliefs with sexual orientation stemmed from the participants’ same-sex attractions. Further motivators for the participants to explore and reconstruct religious beliefs were feelings of shame and guilt. The participants arrived at a place where they could no longer deny their feelings. As I read the participants’ stories, I analyzed the stories by utilizing the narrative therapy term of “re-authoring.” I found that the three unifying aspects of re-authoring in the participants’ stories were re-authoring religious beliefs, re-authoring definitions of family and re-authoring self. .

Azetidine is a four-membered nitrogen-containing heterocyclic ring that has recently received a great deal of attention as a molecular scaffold for the design and preparation of biologically active compounds. Structure-activity studies employing functionalized azetidines have led to the development of variety of drug molecules and clinical candidates encompassing a broad spectrum of biological activities. Herein, the synthesis a novel series of 3-aryl-3-arylmethoxyazetidines is described. Selected 3-aryl-3-arylmethoxyazetidines were evaluated for their binding affinity to multiple monoaminergic transporters for the potential treatment of methamphetamine addiction. It was discovered that this scaffold exhibits high binding affinity (nM) for both the serotonin and dopamine transporters. In addition, a new method was developed for the synthesis of 3,3-diarylazetidines. This new approach provides a facile and efficient method to synthesize a variety of diaryl heterocycles including 3,3-diarylazetidines, 3,3-diarylpyrrolidines, and 4,4-diarylpiperidines in moderate to good yields.

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This thesis focuses on the possibilities for influencing the motivation of pupils with specific learning disabilities during special pedagogical interventions conducted at schools. The aim of this study is to determine which of the approaches used by specialised pedagogues within the field of specialised pedagogical practice are most effective in increasing the motivation of pupils with learning disabilities and why. One of the sub-goals of this work is to describe the principles for strengthening motivation in special pedagogical interventions. This thesis is divided into two parts: the teoretical and the research part. The theoretical part deals with specific learning disabilities, terminological definitions, etiology and reeducation. It also focuses on motivation, its types, influencing factors and its application. The research part with the use of qualatitive research methods seeks to explore perception of special pedagogues on the role of motivation and support of pupils with specific learning disabilities motivation during the intervention. Key words Learning disabilities, etiology, re -education, motivation, supporting motivation.

The MICE-industry is a relatively new phenomenon that is currently in a strong growth period, fairs are included in this industry. There is a great deal of interest and a variety of motives for people to visit fairs for various reasons. The exhibitors' and visitors' motives differ according to several studies, which shows the problems that exists about what the visitors' actual motives are. This study investigates why visitors in private, educational and business purposes choose to participate in fairs, and identifies what the influencing motive is behind the visitor's decision to participate in a fair. This is examined through a quantitative and qualitative research method. The result shows that there are similarities, but also significant differences between the three visitor purposes. / MICE-industrin är en relativt ung företeelse som är i en kraftig tillväxtperiod, i denna industri ingår bland annat mässor. Det finns ett stort intresse och en rad olika motiv för människor att i olika syften besöka mässor. Utställarnas och besökarnas motiv skiljer sig enligt flera studier åt, vilket visar på den problematik som finns kring vilka besökarnas egentliga motiv är. I denna studie undersöks varför besökare i privat, utbildnings- och företagssyfte väljer att delta i mässor, samt identifiera vad som är det påverkande motivet bakom besökares beslut att delta i en mässa. Detta studeras genom en kvantitativ och kvalitativ undersökningsmetod. Resultatet visar på att det finns likheter, men också betydande skillnader mellan de olika besökssyftena.

A importância dos circuitos de moagem nos setores de mineração, pelotização e cimenteiro - seja por determinar o desempenho de processos subsequentes, seja por sua significativa parcela nos custos operacionais - encorajou o desenvolvimento de extensivos estudos na área. Dois campos continuam, contudo, pouco explorados: a moagem a seco e a moagem fina de concentrados (ou remoagem). Por outro lado, os circuitos de cominuição têm ganhado gradativamente mais importância ao longo dos anos para o mercado de minério de ferro, devido ao aprofundamento das cavas em operação e, por consequência, ao tratamento de minérios mais compactos e com menores teores de ferro. Por si só, essas novas características geraram a necessidade de moer produtos cada vez mais finos e de etapas adicionais de concentração e pelotização. Nesse ínterim, a moagem fina ganhou extrema importância. Este trabalho se concentrou no desenvolvimento de um método de ensaio de laboratório para a previsão do consumo específico de energia na etapa de remoagem a seco, adequado à aplicação em minérios de ferro itabiríticos. Foram investigadas diversas variáveis que podem interferir nos resultados de laboratório e definidas as melhores condições para os ensaios. Em seguida, os resultados dos ensaios foram confrontados com dados de uma operação de remoagem a seco industrial. O método proposto apresentou boa aproximação com os resultados industriais em relação à geração de finos (porcentagem passante em 45 ?m). Em relação à geração de área superficial - parâmetro importante para a pelotização -, os desvios foram maiores devido à sua correlação com a composição mineralógica para as misturas investigadas. Contudo, a relação entre a geração de área superficial com as diferentes mineralogias para o minério de ferro, especialmente o de Carajás, demanda maiores investigações. A relação linear proposta por Rittinger entre a geração de superfície e o consumo específico de energia na moagem também pode ser comprovada para a moagem a seco. / Studies on grinding area are vast due to its importance for mining, pelletizing and cement industry: grinding operations define both the throughput of following processes and operational costs. However, there are two grinding processes that lack deeper understanding: dry and fine grinding (re-grinding). On the other hand, as rich iron ore deposits get depleted and the necessity of treating more complex ores increases, the necessity of re-grinding concentrates prior further steps of concentration grows. Therefore, fine grinding of iron ores is progressively gaining importance. This study focused on the development of a bench scale test to predict the specific energy consumption of dry re-grinding circuits for iron ore. The variables that can affect grinding tests results were evaluated and the best conditions were defined. In sequence, the results of a series of lab tests were compared with data from an industrial circuit. The proposed test presented good correlation with industrial results regarding the generation of fines (percentage passing 0.045 mm). Regarding new surface generation - parameter of great importance for ore pelletizing - the differences between lab and industrial results were bigger, due the correlation of this parameter with the mineralogical composition of the samples investigated. However, the correlation between surface generation and mineralogical composition for iron ores, especially ores form Carajás complex, demands deeper investigations. Moreover, the linear relationship between energy consumption and surface area generation, as proposed by Rittinger was also observed for dry grinding.

<div> <div> <div> <p>Estimation of physiological vital signs such as the Heart Rate (HR) has attracted a lot of attention due to the increase interest in health monitoring. The most common HR estimation methods such as Photoplethysmography(PPG) require the physical contact with the subject and limit the movement of the subject. Video-based HR estimation, known as videoplethysmography (VHR), uses image/video processing techniques to estimate remotely the human HR. Even though various VHR methods have been proposed over the past 5 years, there are still challenging problems such as diverse skin tone and motion artifacts. In this thesis we present a VHR method using temporal difference filtering and small variation amplification based on the assumption that HR is the small color variations of skin, i.e. micro blushing. This method is evaluated and compared with the two previous VHR methods. Additionally, we propose the use of spatial pruning for an alternative of skin detection and homomorphic filtering for the motion artifact compensation. </p><p><br></p> <p>Intelligent video surveillance system is a crucial tool for public safety. One of the goals is to extract meaningful information efficiently from the large volume of surveillance videos. Person re-identification (ReID) is a fundamental task associated with intelligent video surveillance system. For example, ReID can be used to identity the person of interest to help law enforcement when they re-appear in the different cameras at different time. ReID can be formally defined as establishing the correspondence between images of a person taken from different cameras. Even though ReID has been intensively studied over the past years, it is still an active research area due to various challenges such as illumination variations, occlusions, view point changes and the lack of data. In this thesis we propose a weighted two stream train- ing objective function which combines the Siamese cost of the spatial and temporal streams with the objective of predicting a person’s identity. Additionally, we present a camera-aware image-to-image translation method using similarity preserving Star- GAN (SP-StarGAN) as the data augmentation for ReID. We evaluate our proposed methods on the publicly available datasets and demonstrate the efficacy of our methods.</p></div></div></div>

Student Number : 0105159R - MSc(Eng) Dissertation - School of Electrical and Information Engineering - Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment / This dissertation presents the design of a re-usable rocket for use in triggered-lightning experiments. It is intended that the rocket will tow a thin wire to sufficient height so that the lightning mechanism will attach onto the wire and follow it to ground. The rocket design is inherently safe as it does not use explosive materials for its propulsion system, and hence conforms to South African explosive legislation. The designed rocket consists of a hybrid motor, which uses a solid combustion chamber and liquid oxidiser rather than solid motors which use a single solid fuel or a liquid motor which uses two liquid propellants. The mechanical performance of the oxidiser stage is critical in containing the pressurised oxidiser and regulating the flow of the oxidiser into the combustion chamber. The design of the combustion chamber and the rate at which the solid material burns is key to the generation of the pressure which is expelled through the nozzle to produce thrust. The design of the nozzle is covered in which the material from which it is made must withstand temperatures in excess of 1600 ◦C. The entire system was modelled to calculate the parameters of the various subsystems. The simulation study shows that the rocket will be able to reach 1 km with a complete section of wire towed behind it. A cost analysis, against other commercial rocket systems, was performed. The analysis concludes from the total cost of ownership that it is significantly cheaper to operate the designed rocket, over the course of the experiment, than other rocket systems.

Violent and traumatic events are a regular occurrence in many South Africans’ lives. The term 'continuous traumatic stress’ was coined by South African anti-apartheid health professionals in the 1980’s to explain the continuous nature of violence and trauma happening within the country. Although the political agenda may have shifted, many South Africans are still living within a context in which violent and traumatic events regularly occur. However, little is known about how health workers respond to continuous trauma within the South African setting. The Community Health Workers - within this study - are part of the South African health model called ‘Primary Health Care Re-engineering’ that is currently being piloted. The research was exploratory in nature and used a mixed methods design. Twenty three Community Health Workers who participated in the study were from two sub-districts within the Ekurhuleni district, Gauteng, Johannesburg. The research included two face to face semi-structured individual interviews. The first included qualitative questions and completion of the quantitative Stressful Life Events Screening Questionnaire (1998) to explore past trauma experiences. Over a seven month period, the participants were asked to document traumatic event exposure and responses through the adapted Life Events Checklist (1995) and personal journaling. At the end of this period, participants were interviewed again to explore their current traumatic experiences. Qualitative data were analysed through thematic content analysis and quantitative data were used to substantiate information from the interviews and checklists. Results show that Community Health Workers – within this study - have a high prevalence of exposure to traumatic events (directly experiencing, witnessing and hearing about). Prominent events included physical and sexual assault, transport accidents, fires and explosions. Media played a powerful role in exposure to events. Traumatic and unexpected losses were key experiences that need to be considered when working with trauma in the South African context. Acknowledgement of experiences (peer and external) is an essential element in developing support structures. These findings – from the context of Ekurhuleni, South Africa - contribute to exploring and understanding the experience of ‘continuous traumatic stress’ for Community Health Workers.

L’objectif de cette thèse a été de proposer une approche robuste pour traiter le problème de la recherche dela réponse précise à une question.Notre première contribution a été la conception et la mise en œuvre d’un modèle de représentation robuste de l’informationet son implémentation. Son objectif est d’apporter aux phrases des documents et aux questions de l’informationstructurelle, composée de groupes de mots typés (segments typés) et de relations entre ces groupes. Ce modèle a été évalué sur différents corpus (écrits, oraux, web) et a donné de bons résultats, prouvant sa robustesse.Notre seconde contribution a consisté en la conception d’une méthode de réordonnancement des candidats réponsesretournés par un système de questions-réponses. Cette méthode a aussi été conçue pour des besoins de robustesse, ets’appuie sur notre première contribution. L’idée est de comparer une question et le passage d’où a été extraite une réponse candidate, et de calculer un score de similarité, en s’appuyant notamment sur une distance d’édition.Le réordonnanceur a été évalué sur les données de différentes campagnes d’évaluation. Les résultats obtenus sontparticulièrement positifs sur des questions longues et complexes. Ces résultats prouvent l’intérêt de notre méthode, notreapproche étant particulièrement adaptée pour traiter les questions longues, et ce quel que soit le type de données. Leréordonnanceur a ainsi été évalué sur l’édition 2010 de la campagne d’évaluation Quaero, où les résultats sont positifs. / The objective of this work is to introduce a new robust approach to treat the problem of finding the correctanswer to a question.Our first contribution is the design and implementation of a robust representation model for information. The aim is torepresent the structural information of sentences of documents and questions structural information. This representation iscomposed of typed groups of words (typed segments) and relations between these groups. This model has been evaluatedon several corpus (written, oral, web) and achieved good resultats, which proves his robustness.Our second contribution consisted is the design of a re-ranking method of a set of the candidate answers output by thequestion-answering system. This re-ranking method is based on the structural information representation. The general ideais to compare a question and a passage from where a candidate answer was extracted, and to compute a similarity score by using a modified edit distance we proposed.Our re-ranking method has been evaluated on the data of several evaluation campaigns. The results are quite goodon long and complex questions. These results show the interest of our method : our approach is quite adapted to treatlong question, whatever the type of the data. The re-ranker has been officially evaluated on the 2010 edition of the Quaeroevaluation campaign, with positives results.