This is Part A. / Abstract Not Provided. / Thesis / Master of Engineering (MEngr)

The volitional theory of action has recently been assailed as an outmoded account of human action, while attempts have been made to preserve the theory on grounds which side-step the traditional difficulties. Both approaches to the theory have left it without a coherent expression. This thesis is an attempt to give a coherent theoretical foundation to the theory and to effect its critical evaluation. Preceding a discussion of the theory is a historical appreciation of its tradition, and this is used as a backdrop for viewing two aspects of the theory which serve today as its paradigms. The one is an analysis of human action in terms of a volition which is considered as something which an agent performs, and the other is an analysis of human action in terms of a volition connected causally to an item of behavior, The incompatibility of these aspects is indicated, and an attempt is made to locate them within a wider theoretical structure. This is done by distinguishing between atomic actions and instrumental actions and by attributing to the theory two definitions of an individual human action which preserve these paradigms and which account for both sorts of actions. The final segment of the thesis is concerned with a critical dismissal of the theory. The stock arguments against the theory are first defeated, end it is then argued that one aspect of the theory fails to account for forbearances and that the other aspect does not provide an adequate account of atomic actions. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

<p> The purpose of the following is to construct a theological epistemology from analytic religious epistemology and Christian theology. Paul K. Moser's religious epistemology provides an evidentialist account of volitional epistemology centered in agapē. Philippians 2:5-11 and its biblical-theological context grounds the historic and eschatological life of Jesus as the basis and means to participate in agapē. Moser's epistemological framework is reconstructed with the master story to provide a setting for Kingdom practices and imaginary. I argue that knowing the Triune God through agapē centers Kingdom participation. Christians imitate the master story in Philippians 2:5-11 to cultivate agapē through Kingdom participation.</p> / Thesis / Master of Theological Studies (MTS)

What is the relationship between judging something as good and being motivated to acton this judgment? Motivational internalism is the thesis that there is a necessaryconnection between moral judgments and motivation. Externalists typically believe that ajudgment-independent desire is needed for the moral judgment to be motivating. Tobridge the gap between internalism and externalism, a few philosophers have appealed totheories of identification-based moral judgments. This implies that although moraljudgments may not be necessarily motivating in general, it could be possible to define acertain kind of identification-based moral judgment that is necessarily motivating. HereinI will examine the role identification plays for moral motivation. I will first analyse anargument that uses an identification-incompatible moral judgment to show thatinternalism is false. I will argue that this argument is unconvincing and that identificationdoes not preclude identification-incompatible moral judgments from being motivating.The identification-based argument hence does not support that internalism is false.Second, I will argue that identification can provide the motivational force needed to makecertain identity-based moral judgments necessarily motivating. This identification-basedaccount does however, I will argue, not support internalism. Despite presenting a kind ofmoral judgment that is necessarily motivating, it is an externalist account of theconnection between moral judgments and motivation since a judgment-independentdesire is a necessary source of its motivational force.

The Spanish subjunctive has been the focus of much SLA research, largely because it poses difficulties for learners of Spanish whose L1 is English (e.g., Collentine, 1993; Stokes & Krashen, 1990; Terrell et al., 1987). Investigating the same feature in heritage learners of Spanish can provide more information about their linguistic development and also has the potential to inform our knowledge of the acquisition of the subjunctive in traditional FL learners. The present study investigates whether heritage learners recognize grammatical and ungrammatical modal choice in volitional constructions. These constructions have been selected because this use of the subjunctive does not vary by a speaker's dialect or by belief about the idea being expressed. Furthermore, given that theories of language attrition posit that the structures that are acquired earliest are the last to be lost (e.g., De Bot & Weltens, 1991) and that Spanish monolingual children acquire the subjunctive in volitional constructions first (Blake, 1980; 1983), heritage learners who have experienced some language attrition may still have knowledge of this feature. To investigate the effect that language attrition or incomplete acquisition may have on this knowledge, I also compared the SHL learners in the sample who were early bilinguals in English (those born in the United States or who immigrated before age 6) with those who were late bilingual (those who immigrated between ages 6 and 13). Students enrolled in Spanish for Heritage Learners (SHL) and Spanish as a Foreign Language (SFL) courses at three universities in the Northeast completed grammaticality judgment (GJ) and editing tasks, which contained examples of correct and incorrect mood choices, as well as distracter items. The GJ task also required participants to explain their judgments. The results indicate that SHL learners outperform their SFL peers on recognizing correct mood selection. No significant differences were found between early and late bilinguals. SHL and SFL learners tended to correct utterances that they had rejected of judged neutrally but gave different types of reasons for accepting utterances. There were several similarities between early and late bilinguals in terms of their reasons for their judgments of utterances.

It is known that the status with regard to teaching and learning of mathematics in South Africa is below norm. One of the reasons for this situation is the fact that many mathematics educators experience problems in assisting learners to invest effort voluntarily in task performance, as well as in strategic plans to maintain their learning intentions. Since learners' reasons for lack of maintenance of intentions and keeping onto learning agenda can not be addressed well if they are not understood, more research studies directed towards investigating these problems need to be done. It is for this reason that this study was aimed at investigating use of volitional strategies, study orientation in mathematics and learning context in relation to performance. The study was done on selected schools with consistent good performance in mathematics (matric pass rate > 80%) for past three to five years. Also included were schools with consistent low performance (matric pass rate < 30%) in the same period. Mathematics teachers of the affected schools were included. The results of the empirical survey reveal the presence of strong significant link between learner perceptions with regard to use of volitional strategies and study orientation. The positive study orientation and volitional strategy use increased learner attributive effect on performance. Furthermore in particular this study reveals strong negative correlation of emotional perseverance inhibition and emotional perseverance rumination and strong positive correlation between failure control and performance. In addition, this study unveiled significant difference between study milieu and learning context. There was moderate impact difference noticed in attitudes, anxiety, study-habits and information processing between schools. Deduction that a suitable learning context moderately to strongly affects aspects of study orientation was made. Learners at schools with high tests scores most favourably perceived the use of attentional distractibility, emotion control, emotional perseverance rumination, and stress reducing than at other schools. Therefore the deduction is made that learning context induced volitional strategy use, which impacted on learner achievement. These findings are similar to those made by other researchers on these topics worldwide. An important contribution made by this study is that it, in a South African context, sheds light both on the need for use of volitional strategies and also presents contextual differences that impact on study orientation in mathematics and ultimate learner performance. Hence the researcher is therefore persuaded that through training in the appropriate knowledge, skills and use of volitional strategies teachers may be able to create a more favourable learning context in their classes that enhances study orientation in general, particularly in mathematics. Therefore there is need to integrate affective issues in the mathematics curriculum / Thesis (M.Ed.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2005.

It is known that the status with regard to teaching and learning of mathematics in South Africa is below norm. One of the reasons for this situation is the fact that many mathematics educators experience problems in assisting learners to invest effort voluntarily in task performance, as well as in strategic plans to maintain their learning intentions. Since learners' reasons for lack of maintenance of intentions and keeping onto learning agenda can not be addressed well if they are not understood, more research studies directed towards investigating these problems need to be done. It is for this reason that this study was aimed at investigating use of volitional strategies, study orientation in mathematics and learning context in relation to performance. The study was done on selected schools with consistent good performance in mathematics (matric pass rate > 80%) for past three to five years. Also included were schools with consistent low performance (matric pass rate < 30%) in the same period. Mathematics teachers of the affected schools were included. The results of the empirical survey reveal the presence of strong significant link between learner perceptions with regard to use of volitional strategies and study orientation. The positive study orientation and volitional strategy use increased learner attributive effect on performance. Furthermore in particular this study reveals strong negative correlation of emotional perseverance inhibition and emotional perseverance rumination and strong positive correlation between failure control and performance. In addition, this study unveiled significant difference between study milieu and learning context. There was moderate impact difference noticed in attitudes, anxiety, study-habits and information processing between schools. Deduction that a suitable learning context moderately to strongly affects aspects of study orientation was made. Learners at schools with high tests scores most favourably perceived the use of attentional distractibility, emotion control, emotional perseverance rumination, and stress reducing than at other schools. Therefore the deduction is made that learning context induced volitional strategy use, which impacted on learner achievement. These findings are similar to those made by other researchers on these topics worldwide. An important contribution made by this study is that it, in a South African context, sheds light both on the need for use of volitional strategies and also presents contextual differences that impact on study orientation in mathematics and ultimate learner performance. Hence the researcher is therefore persuaded that through training in the appropriate knowledge, skills and use of volitional strategies teachers may be able to create a more favourable learning context in their classes that enhances study orientation in general, particularly in mathematics. Therefore there is need to integrate affective issues in the mathematics curriculum / Thesis (M.Ed.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2005.

The purposes of this investigation were to develop and validate a comprehensive assessment instrument to measure academic self-regulation as a personal trait. The instrument was predicated upon an evidence-based conceptual framework of academic self-regulation which described the interactions between cognitive, motivational, volitional, and environmental variables and learners' activating purposeful goal oriented actions. Seven separate studies which included over 1000 undergraduate and graduate students at a large mid-Atlantic university provided reliability and validity evidence for this instrument. Data analysis included Rasch analysis, item response and item analysis, exploratory factor analysis, correlation analysis comparing the developed instrument with a version of an instrument frequently used in studies of academic self-regulation, multiple regression analysis predicting the scales of the frequently used instrument through the developed instrument, item-total correlations, and Cronbach's alpha for each scale and for the entire questionnaire. Findings included evidence that the model accurately represented academic self-regulation; that the developed instrument was reliable; that the instrument had excellent content, structural, substantive, and criterion validity; and that the instrument appeared to yield useful information about the degree to which learners engaged academic self-regulation skills. While additional validation studies are warranted, three potential applications of this instrument are: to investigate academic self-regulation variables; to design learning environments to promote academic self-regulation; and to assess and assist individual learners develop academic self-regulation skills and dispositions. / Ph. D.

Pagal pasaulinę sveikatos organizaciją, sveikata — tai fizinė, dvasinė ir socialinė gerovė, o ne tik ligos ar negalios nebuvimas. Svarbus sveikatą veikiantis veiksnys yra aplinkos temperatūra. Kiekvieno žmogaus organizmas puikiai geba prisitaikyti prie kintančių aplinkos temperatūros sąlygų, tačiau skirtingi žmonės įvairiai reaguoja į temperatūros pasikeitimus. Padidėjus žmogaus kūno temperatūrai gali įvykti perkaitimas — hipertermija. Probleminis klausimas. Ar dirbtinėmis sąlygomis sukėlus hipertermiją, moterų organizmas adaptuosis prie jos? Ar hipertermija riboja raumens funkcines galimybes atliekant maksimalaus intensyvumo izometrinius pratimus? Tyrimo tikslas buvo įvertinti aklimatizacijos hipertermijai ��taką moterų organizmui. Tyrimo tikslui pasiekti iškelti uždaviniai: 1. Nustatyti hipertermijos poveikį tiriamųjų širdies susitraukimų dažniui bei pulsiniam spaudimui. 2. Nustatyti tiriamųjų rektalinės, odos, bendrą kūno temperatūrų kaitą ir netenkamą kūno svorį sukėlus hipertermiją. 3. Įvertinti tiriamųjų subjektyvų šiluminį pojūtį, šiluminį komfortą bei šiluminį stresą sukėlus hipertermiją. 4. Nustatyti hipertermijos poveikį maksimaliai valingai jėgai ir centriniam nuovargiui, atliekant 2 min. maksimalų izometrinį krūvį. Išanalizavus tyrimo rezultatus nustatyta, kad septynis kartus kas antrą dieną pasyviai šildant kūną, įmerkiant kojas į vandenį, kur vandens temperatūra 44oC, bei taikant maksimalios valingos jėgos 2 minučių krūvį (MVJ-2 min.), organizmo aklimatizacija... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / According to the world health organization, health is physical, spiritual and social well-being and not just the absence of illness or disability. An important factor that affects health is the environmental temperature. Every person’s body can adapt well to changing environment conditions, however different people react in a variety of ways to changes in temperature. Increase in human body temperature can lead to overheating - hyperthermia. The goal of the research was to evaluate the effect of acclimatization to hyperthermia to the fatigue of skeletal muscles of adult women when performing maximum intensity isometric exercises. Tasks in order to reach the goal of the research: 1. To determine the effect of hyperthermia to the subjects' heart contraction rate and pulse pressure. 2. To determine the variation of the subjects' rectal, skin and general body temperature and body weight loss during induced hyperthermia. 3. To evaluate the subjective heat sensation, heat comfort and heat stress of the subjects during induced hyperthermia. 4. To determine the effect of hyperthermia to maximum volitional strength and central fatigue when performing maximum 2 min. isometric load. After analysing the results of the research it was found that by passively heating the body every two days seven times in total, by immersing feet into water, whose temperature is 44 oC, and by applying maximum volitional strength 2 minute load (MVJ-2 min.), the acclimatisation of the body to... [to full text]

Background and aims: The primary motor cortex (M1) controls voluntary motor behaviours. M1 has been identified to play a major role in the execution of voluntary corticospinal tasks as well as self-initiated corticobulbar tasks. However, the involvement of M1 in more complex corticubulbar tasks, such as swallowing, is not yet fully understood. Swallowing is quite different from other voluntary motor tasks as it has both voluntary and reflexive components. The degree of M1 involvement in the pharyngeal, or more reflexive, component of swallowing is unclear. Studies investigating the role of M1 in swallowing have yielded contradictory findings regarding the specific functional contribution of M1 to swallowing. Therefore, further investigation is warranted to clarify the role of M1 in pharyngeal swallowing. Discrete saliva or water swallowing has been utilized in most studies investigating neurophysiology of swallowing in health and disease. However, individuals most frequently complete multiple, consecutive swallows during the ingestion of liquid. Biomechanical differences between discrete and continuous water swallows have been identified using videofluoroscopic swallowing study (VFSS). However, no studies have investigated the pharyngeal pressure differences between these two swallowing tasks. Additional insights into task differences may be revealed through evaluation of pharyngeal pressure utilizing pharyngeal manometry. This research programme sought to clarify the role of M1 in reflexively and volitionally initiated pharyngeal swallowing. In order to understand M1 involvement in the execution of swallowing, comparative tasks that require known dependence on M1 were also included in this research programme. This research programme addressed the biomechanical changes in motor behaviours as a result of neural disruption during the performance of a number of motor tasks. This neural disruption was intrinsically generated through application of dual task (DT) paradigm and extrinsically generated using single pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). A secondary aim of this research programme was to identify the differences in pharyngeal pressure generation between discrete and continuous swallowing. Methods: Twenty-four right handed participants (12 males, average age= 24.4, SD= 6.3) were recruited to this research programme. A number of motor tasks that vary in complexity were tested. These tasks included: volitional swallowing, reflexive swallowing, eyebrow movement, jaw movement and finger tapping with right, left, or bilateral index fingers. Participants performed multiple trials of several tasks in each study. Repetitions of tasks during a single session may affect performance due to factors such as fatigue or practice. A baseline study was undertaken to determine within-participant variability of measures across repeated trials. Following the baseline study, the role of M1 in pharyngeal swallowing was investigated in two main studies in counter balanced order. The role of M1 in pharyngeal swallowing was evaluated by investigating swallowing parameters during neural disruption using a DT paradigm. Participants performed tasks in isolation (baseline) and with interference that consisted of pairing swallowing with comparative task that activates M1 (fingers tapping and eyebrow movement tasks). In the other study, single pulse TMS was utilized to create an electrophysiological disruption to the areas of M1 associated with muscular representation of a number of motor behaviours (swallowing tasks, jaw movement and fingers tapping tasks). Stimulation was provided to both hemispheres in random order to evaluate laterality effects. Swallowing parameters and the performance of the other motor tasks were evaluated when performed with and without electrophysiological disruption. Differences in pharyngeal pressure generation between discrete and continuous swallowing were investigated using pharyngeal manometry. Pharyngeal pressures were recorded at three locations: upper pharynx, mid-pharynx and upper esophageal sphincter (UES) during four swallowing types: discrete saliva swallowing, discrete 10 ml swallowing, volitional continuous swallowing, and reflexive continuous swallowing. The research paradigm used in this research programme identified the effect of experimental conditions on the rate and regularity of task performance. In addition, pharyngeal manometry was utilised to measure the effect of experimental conditions on the pattern of the pharyngeal pressure generation during swallowing. Within subject differences from baseline were identified by means of Repeated Measures Analyses of Variance (RM-ANOVA). Results: Initial analysis of the data revealed that repetition of tasks within a session did not affect the rate and regularity of voluntary corticospinal tasks, voluntary corticiobulbar tasks nor swallowing tasks. In addition, repeating the swallowing tasks during a session did not affect pharyngeal pressure as measured by pharyngeal manometry. When motor tasks were performed concurrently in the DT paradigm, rate and regularity of eyebrow movements were significantly decreased when paired with swallowing tasks, whereas rate and regularity of swallowing were significantly decreased when paired with left finger tapping, but not right finger tapping. However, there was no significant effect of any task on the pattern of pharyngeal pressure generation. Extrinsically generated disruption using TMS significantly reduced rate and regularity of finger tapping tasks and regularity of jaw movement and swallowing tasks. In addition, interruption of pharyngeal M1 during the volitional swallowing task produced significant increase in the duration but not the amplitude of the pharyngeal pressure. Pharyngeal pressure generation differed between swallowing types and boluses types, in that saliva swallowing produced longer pharyngeal pressure duration and lower nadir pressure than water swallows. Discrete water bolus swallowing produced longer UES opening compared to both saliva swallowing or continuous water swallowing. Conclusion: The results of this research programme provided valuable methodological information regarding the effect of trials on task performance as well as identifying pharyngeal pressure differences between discrete and continuous swallowing. In addition to the methodological contribution, this research programme expanded on previous knowledge of neural control of swallowing, in that it extended the findings regarding potential role of M1 in pharyngeal swallowing. Given the absent effect of task repetition on the performance of corticospinal and corticobulbar motor tasks, it is speculated that outcomes of research investigating the effect of experimental manipulation on motor tasks performance is due to the experimental tasks, rather than natural variance in the data. The effect of swallowing on the rate and regularity of eyebrow movement, when performed concurrently using DT paradigm, suggest bilateral functional overlapping to a significant degree between neural substrates that control swallowing and orofacial muscles. These results offer partial support of bilateral representation of swallowing in the cortex. In addition, results further revealed potential involvement of right M1 in the regulation of pharyngeal swallowing as evidenced by a disruptive effect of left finger tapping on the rate and regularity of swallowing. The results from the hemispheric TMS disruption study support the active involvement M1 in the execution of voluntary corticospinal and corticobulbar motor tasks. In addition, the current findings extended previous knowledge of neural control of pharyngeal swallowing by documenting the effect of neural disruption on the regularity and pharyngeal pressure measures during volitional and reflexive swallowing. The current programme documented potential role of M1 in the control of pharyngeal swallowing possibly by modulating the motor plan at the swallowing CPG in the brainstem. This project is the first to document pharyngeal pressure differences between discrete and continuous swallowing. These findings contribute valuable information to the swallowing literature as limited number of studies investigated the biomechanical differences between discrete and continuous liquid ingestion. This knowledge will assist clinicians and researchers in identifying the pharyngeal pressure differences between normal and abnormal swallowing in different swallowing types and ultimately guide their rehabilitation decisions. Data from this research programme will add to the existing knowledge of neurophysiology of swallowing, thereby facilitating understanding of swallowing pathophysiology which is crucial for appropriate management of swallowing disorders.