Objective: This study evaluated the reliability of the digits-in-noise (DIN) test application across various low and high-end digital devices utilizing different transducers and sound file types. Design: The study utilized a cross-sectional within-subject design. Methods: The study consisted of two objectives. In the first objective, 40 normal hearing participants aged between 18 to 24 years (mean: 20; SD= 1.9) were recruited. Speech Reception Thresholds (SRTs) across Android smartphones (one low-end and one high-end smartphone), as well as an Android tablet coupled with different transducers (headphones and earphones) were compared. For the second objective, participants comprised of 12 normal-hearing females aged between 23 to 24 years (mean: 23, SD= 0.5). SRTs were compared across three different sound file types (OGG file, AAC file and MP3 file). Results: There was no significant difference in the SRTs between electronic devices or transducers used (p< 0.05). Furthermore, between the different sound files used, the difference was also not significant (p< 0.05). Conclusions: The DIN test is reliable when conducted across different electronic devices, regardless of the transducer or sound file type used. Therefore, the DIN test is clinically valid when downloaded and performed on Android devices despite the cost of the device thus offering greater usability in a variety of audiological contexts. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2019. / Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology / MA / Unrestricted

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / This study investigates the ideational metafunction in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart in order to explore the characterisation of Okonkwo, Unoka, Ezinma, Ekwefi and Mr. Brown. The study confines itself to the following objectives, namely, to identify process-types attributed to characters; identify the transitivity patterns embedded in process-types attributed to characters; establish the significance of transitivity patterns attributed in the characterisation; and establish the significance of process-type collocations in projecting the development of characters in the story. The present undertaking is drawn from the theoretical frontiers of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and the analytical lens of transitivity model, backed by the methodological locale of Corpus Linguistics (CL). The study reveals that although Okonkwo, Unoka, Ezinma, Ekwefi and Mr. Brown are attributed material processes (MaPs); mental processes (MePs); relational processes (RePs); and verbal processes (VePs), significant differences exist not only in how the allotted process-types are mapped per character but also on how they impact on characterisation. / 2023

South African people love sport. In a context where sport events like the Soccer World Cup or a Super 15 rugby match can draw crowds of up to 95 000 people, we cannot ignore the importance of sport. In contrast to the popularity of sport events and the huge crowds they manage to attract, most churches struggle to get 500 people to church on a Sunday morning.This situation raises two questions, namely: “What draw people to sport?” and “Can theology and Liturgical Studies in particular, learn something from sport?”<p< In order to pursue these and similar questions I used a practical theological model to guide me in my observation of the South African context. I’ve chosen the practical theologian RR Osmer’s model to work with. He works with the four tasks of Practical Theology and suggests four questions to guide a researcher or minister in their interpretation and response to situations. Answering each of these questions is the focus of the four core tasks of practical theological interpretation. The first question is: “What is going on?” Gathering information that helps us discern patterns and dynamics in particular episodes, situations, or contexts is the descriptive-empirical task of practical theological interpretation. I gathered information since the Soccer World Cup in South Africa in 2010. I identified ten moments in our sport contexts that will be looked at more closely within the framework of Osmer’s model. The ten moments are: <ul> <li>the need to predict the future</li><li> rituals</li> <li>physical contact</li> <li>tribal and together</li> <li>symbols</li> <li>tole models</li> <li>performance</li> <li>the meeting space</li> <li>Godly role</li> <li>defying death</li> </ul> The second question is: “Why is this going on?” Here we try to make sense of what we’ve found. What theories might help us to better understand and explain the patterns and dynamics we’ve begun to discover? These are the key questions of the interpretive task of practical theological interpretation. Here I’ve used theories from the arts and sciences to better understand and explain why the ten moments I identified in sport are occurring. The third question is: “What ought to be going on?” This is the normative task of practical theological interpretation. Here theological concepts are used to interpret particular episodes, situations, contexts or in this study, the ten moments. The aim of this task is to construct ethical norms to guide our responses, and to learn from “good practice”. The fourth question is: “How might we respond?” This is the pragmatic task of practical theological interpretation. The aim is to determine strategies of action that will influence situations in ways that are desirable. Here I looked into the possibility of the liturgical inculturation of the ten moments. In conclusion suggestions for the liturgical praxis were made./ Copyright / Dissertation (MDiv)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Practical Theology / unrestricted

The Yuppie, the Young Urban Professional, is a social type closely linked to the popular historical conception of the 1980s. The type is characterized as a young person working in banking, media or finance with expensive tastes in consumption and an individualistic, vapid mindset. Considering the popular conception of the Yuppie as a sort of manifestation of all things 80s, this paper explores how the Yuppie was represented in Swedish newspapers in the period 1984 to 1991. Using Bourdieu’s concept of the classificatory struggle this study charts how the Yuppie was invoked in the social world of its day. Contrary to the mythic belief of the 1980s as the decade of the Yuppie, the social type is represented only as a culturally dominant type between 1985 and 1987 and becomes a historical concept by 1988. The Yuppie was channeled as opposed to the socially conscious Hippie-type of the 1970s and the traditional Swedish working class. Furthermore, the Yuppie was viewed by contemporary commentators as a sort of amalgamation of various social and economic trends that they meant characterized the 1980s, such as the growth and deregulation of the financial sector, rising prices of housing in central Stockholm, and the rise of new forms of labor starkly different from the traditional swedish industry. This contemporary ‘historization’ of the Yuppie attests to a view of history as a sort of pendulum of zeitgeists, where Yuppie replaces hippie, individualism replaces social conscience, seemingly of its own volition.

Kooperativt lärande är en metod med fokus på kommunikation mellan elever och många förespråkare argumenterar för att metoden har positiva effekter på elevers kommunikation inom matematik. Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka muntlig kommunikation mellan elever på lågstadiet inom kooperativt lärande i matematikundervisning, samt eventuella skillnader och likheter i kommunikation och interaktion mellan pararbete och grupparbete. Studien genomfördes som en kvalitativ undersökning på lågstadiet där data samlades in genom observationer av elever som arbetade med matematikuppgifter i par och i grupper. Data analyserades utifrån Neil Mercers (1995) indelning av kommunikation i tre olika talk types samt utifrån Kagans och Stenlevs (2017) grundprinciper för kooperativt lärande. Resultatet indikerar att kommunikationen mellan elever som arbetar enligt den kooperativa metoden i matematikundervisningen genomsyras av cumulative talk. Dessutom tyder resultaten på att likheterna mellan par- och grupparbete är en låg förekomst av exploratory talk samt att en brist på samarbete leder till disputational talk mellan eleverna. Det finns även indikationer på att elever har enklare att samarbeta i par än i grupp, och att kommunikationen i par är mer positiv och okritiskt. Studiens slutsatser är inte generaliserbara.

Application of clearly defined feedback types, which have been correlated with improved student performance, has great potential for maximizing instructor use of feedback and its effect on a learner's self-regulatory learning (SRL) for optimized learning. Within SRL, where learner performance is influenced by a recursive internal process, instructional feedback plays a critical role. Yet, the characteristics of external feedback that influence SRL to improve performance are unclear in the literature. Within a theoretical framework where feedback catalyzes self-regulation, this quantitative study sought to integrate feedback type research to expand the SRL model. Data were graded assignments from 23 undergraduate level and 8 graduate level online university courses randomly selected from a pool of 86 possible courses. Applying non-experimental logistic regression and using descriptive statistics, feedback was categorized to determine the quantity of each of the 5 feedback types [task correctness (FC), task elaboration (TE), task process (FP), self-regulation (FR), and personal or self-related (FS)], as well as how they correlated with improved performance. The results indicate that the feedback types were not normally distributed, FS was statistically not present and FE was most used, and the logistical regression indicated that the presence of FC and FR was minimally associated with improved performance. Additional experimentation is needed to normalize the type distribution and test the strength of the FC and FR effect. This study initiated a clarification in understanding the external component of feedback in the SRL model, which is necessary to harness feedback to create positive change in the self-regulatory processes of learners.

The problems of phosphate fertilization have attracted the attention of agronomists, nutritionists, and other biological scientists due to the importance of phosphorus in animal and plant nutrition. However, the fundamental behavior of phosphorus in soil systems is not well understood. Because of its far-reaching effects, a solution of a portion of this problem is of importance.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Water is an essential resource for life on Earth, and monitoring its quality is an important task for mankind. However, the amount of water quality data collected by the traditional method is insufficient for the conservation and sustainable management of this important resource. This challenge will be exacerbated by increasing harmful algal blooms at the global scale. To fill this gap, Earth Observations (EO) have been proposed to help stakeholders make their decisions, but the use of EO for monitoring inland water quality is still in development. In this context, the main objective of this study was to improve the estimation of cyanobacteria via remote sensing data. To achieve this goal, the water type classification was first used to identify the dominant optically active constituents within aquatic environments. This information is crucial for understanding the optical properties of inland waters and selecting the best remote sensing algorithm for specific optical water types. The next research question was to develop a universal structure for retrieval of the inherent optical properties of several important aquatic systems around the world, which can be used as a corner stone for developing a globally applicable remote sensing algorithm. The third research topic of this dissertation is about removing the interference of chlorophyll-a with the absorption strength at 620 nm where phycocyanin exhibits its diagnostic absorption so that the estimation of phycocyanin concentration can be improved. Despite the novelty of the proposed remote sensing algorithms which are able to accommodate distinct water optical properties, there are abundant opportunities for improving the parameterization of the proposed models to retrieve inland water quality and optical properties when a global database of optical and water quality measurements is available. Considering the current advancement in spaceborne technology and the existence of a coordinate effort for global calibration and validation of remote sensing algorithms for monitoring inland waters, there is a high potential for operational assessment of harmful cyanobacterial blooms using the remote sensing algorithms proposed in this dissertation.

© 2015 Springer. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26529-2_11© 2015 ACM, Inc. http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2676726.2676996 / 京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(情報学) / 甲第19863号 / 情博第614号 / 新制||情||107(附属図書館) / 32899 / 京都大学大学院情報学研究科通信情報システム専攻 / (主査)教授 五十嵐 淳, 教授 山本 章博, 教授 岡部 寿男 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Informatics / Kyoto University / DFAM

Former researches provide evidence that invasive species could alter ecosystem’s components, threaten native species and cause economic losses in southern forest lands. The objective of the project is to explore significant driving factors and develop geospatial models for monitoring, predicting and mapping the extent and conditions of major invasive species. In the study area, 16 invasive species were classified into four groups: regionally spreading species, regionally establishing species, locally spreading species and regionally colonizing species by population size and spatial characteristics. According to local Moran’s I, spatial autocorrelation existed in 16 invasive species. Autologistic model and simultaneous autoregressive model were employed to explore the relationships between spatial distribution and a set of indentified variables for Chinese privet, kudzu, Nepalese browntop and tallow tree at plot and county levels. The project showed that human-caused disturbances and forest types were significantly related to the spatial distribution of four invasive species in different scales.