Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Chaning'

In studying leading as a way of changing meaning, this research documents a journey of inner exploration amongst five self-nominated leaders in education. In contrast to change limited by outer dimensional structure, changing meaning in an inner dimension was seen as the necessary complement in creating real difference in educators and in educating. Over a period of almost a year, the leaders participated in an online project, travelling together through email dialogue focused around leading, changing and meaning. In this, they experimented with a changing way of researching, developing a personalised space of changing in which they could truth-test their thoughts and feelings about the multiple facets of leading and meaning. Such a space - interstitial to their outer working and inner personal lives, but deeply connective of both - was found useful in supporting coherent change processes in the participant leaders. (Please note that frontispiece and endpiece illustrations have been not been included as they are subject to copyright.)

Reliable and precise information about possible floods, related water levels and inundation areas are needed even in urban areas to minimize potential damages. An important requirement for this issue is to adapt the stage-discharge relations to the changing constraints which could arise from morphology and hydrology. This paper reconsiders the use of historical hydrologic data in urban areas which have fundamentally changed even concerning the river beds, cross sections and floodplain areas. By means of a historical approach the flood statistics have been updated with surprising results.

Reliable and precise information about possible floods, related water levels and inundation areas are needed even in urban areas to minimize potential damages. An important requirement for this issue is to adapt the stage-discharge relations to the changing constraints which could arise from morphology and hydrology. This paper reconsiders the use of historical hydrologic data in urban areas which have fundamentally changed even concerning the river beds, cross sections and floodplain areas. By means of a historical approach the flood statistics have been updated with surprising results.

This thesis explores the issue of curricular innovations in Hong Kong as 1997 begins to affect local socio-political and economic systems. The broad argument is that 1997 is a critical point in the history of Hong Kong for making curricular changes to prepare young people for the merger. Chapter One introduces the problem: that the local educational system has responded slowly to the political reality of Hong Kong. The topic has emerged as a serious educational issue as educators seek a public consultation on the future objectives of Hong Kong education. The practical research question is how far are socio-political changes forcing people to re-examine their views of current educational provision? Chapter Two draws on literature to provide an account of the current political and social, economic and cultural transformation in Hong Kong. Chapter Three starts with exploring Hong Kong's educational context and its relationship with indigenous culture and the current socio-economic value system; and ends by reviewing the curriculum debate in Hong Kong which is beginning to stress moral and citizenship education. Chapter Four takes up the theme of preparing young people for life and as citizens of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region by raising the question of how values are acquired. The chapter concentrates the analysis on value acquisition especially in terms of the balance of social construction and intellectual development. Chapter Five continues this discussion but focuses the analysis on the acquisition of economic values and concepts, and the socio-economic value system of young people. Chapter Six describes the details of the interviewee-oriented research and fieldwork methods. Methods of data analysis are also introduced. Chapter Seven analyses the data in three ways, using verbatim quotations; a coding frame; and the concept of indigenous Hong Kong culture. Chapter Eight concludes the thesis and suggests a general curriculum proposal for educating future "competent adults" in Hong Kong.

Die vorliegende Studie analysiert die Politische Ökonomie von Forstplantagen in den Tropen. Die Analyse der Makroebene zeigt dabei eine globale Perspektive auf, sowie historische Veränderungen von Paradigmen in Bezug zu Waldplantagen. Der zweite Teil der Studie analysierte Plantagen auf der Mikro-Ebene im Hinblick auf divergente geographischen Zusammenhänge, nämlich Paraguay und Indonesien. Fallstudien eignen sich hierbei, um ein vielfältiges Spektrum von Waldplantagen darzustellen, sowie Beispiele für die in der Makroebene abgeleiteten Paradigmen zu illustrieren. Abschließend verbindet die Studie die Entwicklungen der Makro-Ebene mit Belegen aus der Mikro-Analyse. Hierauf ableitend werden Empfehlungen für die Anlage zukünftiger Plantagen getätigt. Die Methodik wurde den Untersuchungsebenen in einem iterativen Prozess angepasst. Der Umfang variiert dabei von Makro- bis Mikroanalysen, sowie vom theoretischen bis zum empirischen Niveau. Auf der Makroebene wurde eine Politische-Ökonomie-Analyse und eine Untersuchung desrelevanten historischen Materials durchgeführt. Weiterhin wurden Plantagen Paradigmen anhand ausgewählter Indikatoren abgegrenzt. Für die Mikroebene wurden Fallstudien mit lokalen Interviews durchgeführt, welche Daten für eine Mehrkriterienanalyse (MCA) lieferten. Die Kombination der Mikro- und Makroanalyse erfolgte durch eine Korrelationsanalyse und wurde durch eine Diskussion abgerundet. Das Forschungsergebnis aus der globalen Analyse ist eine Typologie von sechs Paradigmen und deren Untervarianten, welche als theoretisches und analytisches Werkzeug in der Forschung zu Plantagen dienen können. Die Paradigmen wurden klassifiziert als: i) das vorindustrielle P.; ii) das kolonial industrielle und national industrielle; iii) das Schutzparadigma; iv) das soziale P.; v) das neo-liberale und modifiziert neoliberale P. und vi) das globalpolitische Paradigma. Die Ergebnisse der Fallstudien und MCA zeigen zum einen sichtbare Mängel in Plantagen unter verschiedenen Paradigmen auf und unterstreichen zum anderen positive Effekte bestimmter Paradigmen. Die MCA Bewertungspunkte zeigen zum Beispiel, dass manche Paradigmen mit dem Kriterium Landkonflikt korrelieren, oder präsentieren unterschiedliche lokale Beteiligung auf verschiedenen Plantagen, illustrieren Vorteile, die Plantagen für unterschiedliche Interessengruppen bringen. Die MCA bewertet weiter die Wirtschaftsleistung der Plantagen und vergleicht Faktoren, wie Nutzenverteilung, Rentabilität, Marktzugang und Rahmenbedingungen für Investitionen. Sie analysiert soziale Faktoren, wie Arbeitssicherheit, Zugang zu Dienstleistungen, Beteiligung oder Personalmanagement. Weiterhin werden Umweltprobleme durch die Studie aufgegriffen, z.B. Landnutzungsänderungen, Wasser- oder Boden- Auswirkungen, Lebensraumfunktion usw. Wie die vergleichende Analyse zeigt, ist die modifizierte Neoliberale Paradigma Plantage (Outgrower-Scheme) besonders geeignet, um sowohl soziale als auch wirtschaftliche Vorteile zu sichern (90 % und 84 % in den entsprechenden Feldern gegenüber dem hypothetischen Idealtyp Plantage). Andere Forschungsergebnisse deuten auf wichtige Erkenntnisse bei der Plantagenentwicklung hin, die auf der Plantagen-Ebene und bei der Gestaltung nationaler Rahmenbedingungen für den Plantagensektor berücksichtigt werden sollten. Handlungsempfehlungen für die forstwirtschaftliche, epistemische Gemeinschaft zur Gestaltung der weiteren Diskurse in Bezug auf globalen Plantagen werden ebenfalls diskutiert.

This study investigates the reproductive and parental roles of polyandrous male pale chanting-goshawks, Melierax canorus, and speculatively reviews the fitness outcomes of different skew and relatedness scenarios. The study was conducted over five years in the Little Karoo, South Africa. Although, polyandrous males participated equally in building nests, provisioning prey and incubating, in the fertility window the dominant alpha males copulated 31–5 days before the females laid, whereas subordinate beta males only copulated 5–3 days before laying. If this copulation timing by alpha males was indicative of a high reproductive skew, alpha males breeding as full sibs could skew paternity in their favour (ratio 68:32) and produce 0.69 offspring equivalents. Under this scenario, they compensated beta males with indirect fitness benefits by allowing them to produce 0.54 offspring equivalents, equal to monogamous males. Alternatively, if beta males controlled reproduction while breeding with non-relatives under a high skew scenario, they would have to restrain themselves to avoid eviction and produce 0.28 offspring equivalents to allow the fitness of alpha males at least to equal that of monogamous males. I suggest that alpha males and their females altered their reproductive roles to accommodate beta males, thereby increasing their inclusive fitness, whereas beta males tolerated subordination to acquire reproductive skills that non-breeder males do not have access to.

Early menopause has been constructed by discourses of biological determinism as an untimely, but natural, failure of the female body. Medical discourses in particular have interpreted early menopause as a congenital irregularity and a rare anomaly of menopause at midlife. In this thesis I challenge the notion that early menopause is an innate imperfection related only to women’s age. I propose that early menopause is dependent upon the cultural interpretations of individual women and is constituted through the mercurial and multiple discourses of women who have this embodied experience. Moreover, I reveal that early menopause is a contemporary condition and that its location in history is inextricably bound to discourses of risk, naturalism and the self. Further I make the assumption that having an early menopause both affects and is an effect of women’s fertility, sexuality and subjectivity. I have drawn upon a broad range of sources to provide a sociological analysis of early menopause. Literature on early menopause is dominated by positivist discourses, yet many alternate discourses negotiate these influential constructions. I suggest here that the perception of early menopause as a natural fault is merely a construction by medical discourses and does not incorporate the dynamic discourses of early-menopausal women. Moreover, the restriction of early menopause to a genetic female failure excludes the majority of women who have an early menopause through iatrogenisis. This omission occurs through the failure of positivist discourses to accommodate diversity in discourses. Recent sociological and feminist studies have vindicated menopausal women. They have reconstructed menopause through notions of embodiment and have removed the veil of negativity used by the medical sciences to contain menopausal women (Komesaroff, Rothfield and Daly 1997). The visibility of menopausal women, however, remains connected to age. Menopause has been created as a predictable consequence of aging and as such has come to be synonymous with middle age. Nowadays, even men are said to experience menopause at midlife (Carruthers 1996). But early menopause is constituted within the discourses of women who have this experience. Medico-scientific discourses, based upon theories of genetic inevitability, disregard this perspective. Consequently early menopause is subsumed by naturalistic discourses that relate menopause to midlife. Such restraint reflects the unease created by menopause that does not coincide with prescribed life stages. Women's experiences of their changing bodies are largely unheard. Thus, women who have an early menopause are faced with a chasm of ‘cultural non-recognition’ (Fraser 1997). Conjointly with this discursive repression early-menopausal women face social imbalances that are transacted as both cause and consequence of early menopause. In particular the contemporary creation of early menopause is bound to the social and historical location of women as a group. Women are exploited by the institution of medicine, ‘exposure to environmental toxicity’ (Fraser 1997: 11) and commercialization as causes of early menopause. Yet the corporeal effects of practices of risk avoidance (Beck 1993), social practices (Shilling 1993) and Western consumerism (Lupton 1994) fail to be recognized. I address these problematics through a poststructural and feminist critique that assumes moments of commonality among women, while at the same time recognizes shifting and multiple differences (Nicholson 1999). I suggest here that early menopause falls into cultural misrecognition in Fraser's (1997) terms and argue that it is united concurrently with the gender injustice of androcentrism (Fraser 1997: 21). Fraser (1997: 16) suggests that it is only by relating these dual problematics that we are able to make sense of current dilemmas. Thus I have critiqued early menopause through a connection between individual embodied experiences of early menopause and early menopause as a modern phenomenon that is specific to women. I have attempted to unravel these arguments that simultaneously call to ‘... abolish gender differentiation and to valorize gender specificity’ (Fraser 1997: 21) while at the same time acknowledging their interconnectedness. An approach of merely combining women’s discourses with overarching social issues would be inadequate as not only do these problematics intersect but they also can be opposed. As Fraser (1997: 25) notes with her theory, redressing one aspect of cultural or social analysis can further imbalance another. For instance making visible the diversity and uniqueness of individual experiences of early menopause could detract from acknowledging the contemporary construction of early menopause through social inequality. Crucial to this understanding is a destabilizing of the binary construction of differences between the sexes that makes way for a reconstruction of early menopause through ‘sexual slippage’ (Matus 1995). In this thesis I look for a subtlety between the particular and the collective that views early menopause as concurrently a singular and changeable experience as well as imbedded in social practice. I suggest that these concepts are entwined as interactive effects of early menopause. Thus I have analyzed the bivalent problematics of the embodiment and social location of early menopause as imbricated, dynamic and unending discourses. From this perspective I reviewed the literature that was available on early menopause. In Chapter One I look to descriptions of early menopause and note that it has disappeared into a conglomeration of disparate, mostly medical, discourses that are contradictory. Nevertheless medical discourses offer ‘conclusive’ definitions of early menopause that are based on naturalistic views of the body (Shilling 1994). The determinants used are inconsistent and do not include women's discourses of early menopause. Thus, dominant medical discourses obscure women’s embodied experiences of early menopause and ignore the contemporary causes of early menopause. In Chapter Two I examine the causes of early menopause as a way of explaining the disparity between medical discourses and my anecdotal observations of early menopause as a fairly common contemporary occurrence. The relatively recent escalation in gynaecological surgery, especially hysterectomy, appears to account almost single-handedly for early menopause as a current phenomenon. Moreover, the extraordinary number of women who have their uterus removed at hysterectomy can be interpreted as a modern implementation of ancient anxieties. Women's sexuality has been constructed throughout history as problematic and this unease has been translated through women's bodies as dangerous and in need of control (Greer 1992). Thus social concerns which have evolved historically have emerged through the representation of a woman's uterus as an unseen, dark and mysterious risk (Beck 1993). Medical discourses define this risk and are able to negate the so-called dangers of women's sexuality through the surgical removal of their organs. Widespread negotiation of medical discourses is apparent, as hysterectomy in the modern Western world is the most common of all surgical operations (Hufnagel 1989). It is overwhelmingly the most common cause of early menopause as well. I examine also the historical condemnation of infertile women and how this anxiety has been transposed to the modern world through the commercialization of reproduction. Transactions of this social unease can cause early menopause. For instance the medical technology of in-vitro fertilization (I.V.F.) has been offered as a panacea for the infertility of early menopause but, paradoxically, can cause early menopause as well. Conception through technology has been normalized as a viable option for women who are unable to conceive and understandings of I.V.F. have moved into everyday discourse. Medical discourses have constructed fertility as a saleable item and infertile women expect that they can purchase this merchandise. Human eggs have become lucrative commodities that now are available in the market place. Egg ‘donation’ for I.V.F. programs can hasten the attrition rate of eggs and can cause early menopause in some pre-menopausal women (Rowland 1992: 24). Even the recycling of a woman’s uterus supposedly has become a possibility through the transferring of this ‘used’ organ at hysterectomy to a recipient woman who can use the other woman’s uterus as a ‘gestational garage’ (Rogers 1998). In this way women have been disembodied as mechanical systems with inter-changeable body parts and the potentially detrimental consequences of these commercial transactions are ignored. In addition I show how early menopause can be caused by the connection between the self and the social structure. Women's subjectivity is constituted through the cultural discourses available to them and these discourses affect social behaviour (Lupton 1995). For instance smoking and dieting have been identified as causes of early menopause. These activities have been related to the creation of women’s bodies as hetero-sexually desirable and are endemic to young women (Evans-Young 1995). This suggests that cultural causes of early menopause are transactions of sexual politics. Yet there is a paucity of literature that acknowledges the relationship between women’s subjectivity and early menopause. Thus the second chapter exposes a link between sexual politics and causes of early menopause through women's relationships with risk, naturalism and the self. In Chapter Three I deconstruct early menopause through theoretical considerations. I rely on an overarching poststructuralism that embraces the concept of fragmented plural discourses and the subjectivity of menopausal women as a continuous process (Komesaroff 1997: 61). I have woven these variables through broad feminist critiques (Leonard 1997). Through this eclectic approach I hoped to find some loose alignment between the corporeal, ontological and embodied dimensions of early menopause. The recurring themes of sexuality, fertility and subjectivity emerge through deconstructing discourses of sexual difference as immutable and non-negotiable; exposing ‘premature ovarian failure’ as a discursive construction that censures early-menopausal women; and acknowledging the discourses of individual women as unique, diverse and dynamic. I looked to a method of exposing some of these individual discourses and in Chapter Four I describe a critical research process aimed at understanding early menopause as a lived experience. In the remaining chapters I align these ontological arguments with an analysis of the discourses of women who had experienced or were experiencing an early menopause. This section partly relieves the ‘cultural non-recognition’ of the discourses of early-menopausal women. I recorded the narratives of fifty early-menopausal women through in-depth interviews and used this empirical data to direct the study. This data provides the opportunity to understand early menopause as an assortment of embodied experiences. For instance women’s experiences of age at commencement of menopause spanned over three and half decades. They did not reflect the age specifications prescribed by medical discourses. Rather women interpreted their experiences within their own discourses and determined their menopause as early based upon the expectations of their cultural context. Many of the women experienced changes attributed to menopause at midlife. It was not these changes that were significant to early-menopausal women it was how each woman translated these changes that provided meanings of early menopause. In Chapter Five I introduce the women through a table that connects the varying experiences of each woman. This profile shows that, in the main, the women’s experiences of early menopause were unexpected. I suggest that this is due to the disparity between early-menopausal women’s experiences and the current age and social norms of menopause. By bracketing the women into cohorts patterns emerged displaying differences between women who had menopause in their teens, twenties, thirties and forties. Adolescent women had intense feelings of abnormality and despair. Women who were in their twenties were less devastated by menopause than the younger women but described their sexuality and self-identity as changing. And although some women in their thirties were shocked or dismayed to have an early menopause others were ambivalent or happy. These women also described their sexuality and self-identity through changing discourses. A number of the women who were in their forties said that they were ‘too young for the menopause’ but were far less despondent than the younger women. It seemed that the greater the distance between age norms and social norms the more negatively women responded. Age norms that determine the social norms of women's lives through a ‘biological clock’ are constructed to reflect social values. But age is a social construction that changes over time. Thus it would appear that women’s changing bodies and changing discourses of early menopause are in the process of recreating age and social norms around menopause. In Chapter Six I draw upon women’s narratives that describe a connection between early menopause and sexuality. Yet the respondents were not unified in their constructions of sexuality. For instance a number of the women rejected the containment of their sexuality as absolute and defined in terms of bi-lateral hetero-sexual opposition. The discourses of these women constructed their sexuality as continuously flexible. Some early-menopausal women described this sexual mobility as an equivocal relationship between their sexuality, reproductive capacity and female organs. Other women articulated their sexuality as vacillating, ambiguous and unrepresentative of the so-called ‘true woman’. Several felt that they were not meant to have female reproductive organs at all. Nearly one third of the women had had their uterus removed at hysterectomy and the reproductive organs of two women were rudimentary. Women’s narratives showed that the social value of fertility influences constructions of early menopause. In Chapter Seven I record the contrast between the poignant responses of women who wished to have a baby of their own and other women who resisted discourses that entwine reproductivity with being a woman. For instance some women negotiated fertility through economic discourses of consumerism with the expectation that they could purchase conception as a commodity. Other women welcomed their early menopause as freedom from contraceptive concerns and others had no interest in reproduction at all. Thus discord arose through discourses that problematize early-menopausal women as non-reproductive and discourses that value variability. In addition many of the women’s accounts constructed their subjectivity as mobile, challenging the notion that discourses of the self are immutable. Chapter Eight presents narratives which suggest that the subjectivity of many women was altered continuously by early menopause. Yet some of the women rejected the construction of their subjectivity as unfluctuating. These contradictions reflect the uncertainties of the contemporary world. Nevertheless most respondents found that the tethering of menopause to constructions of midlife was incongruous with their own experiences. Many women refused to accept the label of social redundancy attached to middle-aged women. They moved their subjectivity beyond the reproductive body to a shifting and tractable identity of the self. This thesis demonstrates that the medical construction of early menopause as a rare and natural female flaw varies from women's experiences which suggest that early menopause is common and discursively constructed. This disparity has occurred through the privilege placed upon the construction of bodies as immutable and sexually static. This privileging has obscured the multi-dimensional causes of early menopause and given preference to a mono-causal theory. By exposing the variety of causes of early menopause the medical construction of women through a universal and unalterable body of reproduction is challenged. Moreover, women's discourses of early menopause demonstrate that the medical reduction of early menopause to a spontaneous bio-chemical malfunction has ignored the volatility of women’s embodied experiences. Women experience early menopause variously and through mercurial discourses. I suggest here that women's discourses of their experiences of early menopause reflect recurring and restructuring philosophical quandaries of fertility, sexuality and subjectivity. While there can be no representative claims made from this thesis it contributes to an understanding of the embodied experiences of early menopause. It provides an understanding of the creation of early menopause through social practices and goes part way to redressing the problematics of what Fraser terms ‘cultural non-recognition’. But, more importantly, it acknowledges early menopause as a variety of experiences where women interpret their changing bodies through changing discourses.

Congressional roll-call votes are often used to investigate legislative voting behavior. To depict adaptive roll-call behavior in response to demographic changes that occur during redistricting, I use issue specific interest group scores from the ADA, NFU, and COPE. This exploits the bias in the selection of the issues that interest groups utilize to rate U.S. representatives, by using them to reflect changes in response to significant demographic fluctuations in the constituency population. The findings indicate that while party is the most significant factor in whether legislators adapt their voting in favor of certain groups, they do notice group composition changes within district and adapt their voting accordingly. This illustrates the impact of redistricting on policy and legislators' adaptation to changes in district composition.

Departing from the idea of a slippery ideological surface over which the term &ldquo
Europe&rdquo
is conceptualized, which is continuously susceptible to shifts and redefinitions, this thesis is devoted to the attempt to outline the differences between the two ways of the conceptualization of &ldquo
Europe&rdquo
in Central Eastern Europe in two specific periods and political contexts. The first period mentioned is the early 1980s, or pre-1989 period, punctuated with the Central European intellectuals&rsquo
(the so-called dissidents&rsquo
) discourse on the &ldquo
European&rdquo
affiliation of the region-especially in cultural terms. The transformation literature is also mentioned in order to pose the counter-factual arguments of this intellectual strand. The second period mentioned is the late 1990s and early 2000s, where the idea of &ldquo
Europe&rdquo
is identified with the EU and the EU accession. In this respect, Poland and Hungary are chosen as the sample countries for the scrutiny of the second period. Euro-discourses of the political parties and the concept of &ldquo
party-based Euroscepticism&rdquo
are scrutinised. The Polish and Hungarian media and the public opinion are also investigated to understand how and with what references &ldquo
Europe&rdquo
is conceptualised in late 1990s and early 2000s in the political space of Central Eastern Europe. Thus, in this study, the basic claim is that the intense debates and the literature on the &ldquo
Europeanness&rdquo
of Central Europe and on the transition that these countries have to realize in order to be &ldquo
European&rdquo
do not have a substantial basis in the conceptualization of &ldquo
Europe&rdquo
in the current political spaces of Poland and Hungary.

This thesis documents, develops and demonstrates a novel form of praxis in relation to disability in Scottish Higher Education. 'Praxis', as I use the term in this thesis, refers to an ongoing, irreducible, collective process through which is enacted, in one and the same process: 'knowledgementing' (the construction and legitimation of knowledge claims); 'radical reflexivity' (the bringing to awareness and critical problematisation of interests served by what is thought, said and done by all relevant parties); and 'ideologically progressive social action' (the pursuit of emancipatory process and just outcomes and the contesting of'external and internal' institutional oppression). The meaning of praxis is explicated in this thesis and demonstrated in action with reference to disability in Scottish Higher Education. Particular attention is paid to explicating and demonstrating the conceptual unity of praxis and the interconnectivity in actuality of the practices, procedures and policies which disable in assemblages or apparatuses, as Foucault uses the terms. The interconnectivity of the praxis is, it is claimed, the key to unlocking the interconnectivity of the assemblages which produce and maintain disability in Scottish Higher Education. The thesis traces the connections between the various elements of the assemblage producing a novel account (and new knowledges) which, it is claimed, could only have been derived as a result of the praxis and which can also account for the knowledges presented in previous research into disability in British Higher Education, locating these studies as part of the disabling assemblage. The thesis concludes by drawing out wider implications of praxis for conventional research, for psychology and social science.

This paper presents research findings related to the human habits of using digital devices. Through theoretical research and empirical fieldwork, it’s clarified that there is a significant concern regarding how we use digital devices and there is health implication that follow. From this baseline this paper presents an application solution designed from the methods of gamification and persuasive computing, concepts where user motivation is a core for success. Therefore, we present a solution based on a social community because from the research and empirical work a community should be a good platform and the social interactions can provide a large amount of the motivation that has been deemed so relevant.

In Language and Ideology in Children’s Fiction (1992) John Stephens forecast the demise of children’s historical fiction as a genre on the grounds that both history itself and the humanist values Stephens saw as underpinning historical fiction were irrelevant to young readers in postmodernity and intrinsically at odds with the attitudes and values of literary postmodernism. In fact, by the end of the millennium juvenile historical fiction was resurgent and continues to propagate humanist ideology. This study explores the changing nature and status of the genre as it has been published in Britain since Geoffrey Trease’s ground‐breaking Bows Against the Barons, a left‐wing retelling of the Robin Hood story, was published in 1934. Consideration is given to the relationship between cultural change and the treatment of the structure, themes, settings and characters that typically feature in historical novels for the young. The work comprises an Introduction and three themed case studies based on a character (Robin Hood), a historical period (the long eighteenth century), and a historical event (the First World War). The case studies are used both to chart changes in the nature, quantity, and reception of historical fiction and to demonstrate the extent to which writers have used historical narratives to explore concerns that were topical at the time the books were written. In addition to the case studies, which of necessity discuss only a proportion of the texts published on each topic, the thesis includes complementary appendices which provide comprehensive bibliographies for the subject. Key changes noted over the period include the rise since the 1970s of historical novels featuring groups that were previously marginalised on the grounds of gender, sexuality, class and/or race; adjustments to the age and audience of historical fiction, and considerable use of fantasy elements including timeslip narratives. Texts discussed in detail include works by Enid Blyton, Hester Burton, Elsie McCutcheon, Marjorie Darke, Penelope Farmer, Leon Garfield, Julia Golding, Stephen R. Lawhead, Robyn McKinley, Linda Newbery, K.M. Peyton, Marcus Sedgwick, Theresa Tomlinson and Geoffrey Trease.

Order in design, whether in music or a building comes from bringing together parts to make a whole. These parts can have an autonomous existence separately and combine to formulate a different event collectively. This thesis is a study of how a building accommodates to the changing needs of a diverse community. It does this by investigating to what end two neighboring apartments, one small and one medium-sized could combine to develop into one large apartment, and revert back again to two apartments when the needs of the inhabitants change. This concept could be paralleled to Jazz, where the musicians find means of altering the sound of the music through improvisation between the notes of the song. The structure of the building like the notes of the melody provides the stationary component and forms the rhythmic beat between the apartments. The pauses or gaps between the structure provide the opportunity for flexibility and improvisation. The melody of the construction comes from the integration of the repetitious permanent structural elements, semipermanent conditions and spontaneously alterable parts. The orchestration of these components allows the building to transform and experience an altering production of its own.
Master of Architecture

This thesis examines emerging commitments by local governments in Oregon to address climate change, and situates those efforts within climate policy development at the international, national, regional, and state governmental levels. It also reviews the literature for local climate initiatives and seeks to expand upon that knowledge by surveying “Climate Policymakers” in Oregon. The survey results provide insight into the challenges and opportunities associated with local government and state-level efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Oregon. Considering current climate policies, a broad selection of scholarly analysis, and the opinions of leading climate policy experts in Oregon, this thesis recommends eight categories of strategies to enhance greenhouse gas reduction efforts in Oregon.

Changing workplace conditions have resulted in psychological contracts becoming more transactionally oriented. The current study addresses the question of how the `new' psychological contract affects organisational commitment. In particular, it seeks to analyse the relationship between the form of the psychological contract (relational/transactional) and type of organisational commitment (affective, continuance, normative).Data were collected from 210 randomly selected participants using the Psychological Contract Scale (PCS), and the Measure of Affective, Continuance and Normative Commitment Scale (MACNCS). The Career Commitment Scale (CCS) and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) were administered and information gathered regarding overall job satisfaction, age, gender, contract type, position held, industry sector and length of employment.The major findings from this study is that there are positive relationships between relational psychological contracts and affective commitment (â = .653, p < .05), continuance commitment (â = .222, p < .05) and normative commitment (â = .476, p <.001), and a negative relationship between transactional psychological contracts and affective commitment (â =148, p < .05), after controlling for various background and employment characteristics. This research increases the understanding of how employees commit to an organisation during times of unstable and changing employment conditions.

ABSTRACT    This thesis discusses the changing society and how the urban setting affects how and where people spend their time socializing and eating. The city of Hanoi has undergone changes, which have had an impact on people’s movements, consumption choices and street traders’ livelihood in the city. There are also issues with housing that have arisen, mainly because the city’s expanding growth. The youth of today are living in quite a different social context society than their parents and especially grandparents, due to economic reforms that have rapidly increased the foreign investment and flow of information from the outside world. This has led to some diverging and sometimes conflicting opinions arising from people of different ages possibly having other ideals and values than their parents and grandparents. The state ideals and global influences also affect people’s behaviour and opinions and food choices. I will describe the food scene and changes that have happened to it, due to foreign influences and trade. This study is mainly based on secondary sources, combined with a case study of young people’s eating out food choices based upon my own fieldwork in Hanoi, Vietnam from February to April, 2013. I will situate and contextualize what part food plays for the youths and exploring the difference between street food and fast food and why people would choose one over the other.

In a time of globalization and multiculturalism, the discourses on migration and social issues have become increasingly focused on culture. Although cultural changes are considered an important part of integration processes, there is uncertainty about what these changes actually are, and how they come about. The purpose of this study is to examine how migrants define and experience culture and cultural changes, and how they construct these changes. Starting from an elaborated version of Ann Swidler’s concept of culture as a toolkit, and through interviews with 19 people who have migrated to Sweden, the study shows that people experience culture as permeating all aspects of their life, intimately linked to their social lives. They also actively use culture as a tool to negotiate between cultural preservation, and integration into a new society. In the process of cultural changes, culture is both the subject of change, and the method for their construction.

This dissertation describes how desiring subjects make devotional worlds in times of radical change. I argue that what is centrally at stake for people who pass through the Şumuleu Ciuc (Hungarian: Csíksomlyó) pilgrimage site in Transylvania, Romania is the question of what makes a good Catholic in relation to the Virgin Mary. Disputes about this question revolve around notions of the desiring subject: What role should forms of sexual, material, and affective self-interest – or lack thereof – play in the life of Mary’s devotees and the life of the Mother of God herself? This formulation of desire and change as intersubjective and relational processes involving divine and human beings breaks new ground among dominantly sociological and symbolic studies of religious change in contemporary Eastern Europe. Chapter One broadly outlines 20th and 21st century social transformations in the Ciuc valley. Chapter Two explores the annual Pentecost pilgrimage event as a ritual intricately caught up in everyday processes of emerging post-socialist masculine subject formation. Chapter Three tells the story of a young woman’s vision of the Virgin Mary that resulted in the installation of a new statue and shrine at the pilgrimage site. Where other scholars have treated similar events in terms of abstract political processes of resacralizing and nationalizing post-socialist space and time, I seek to re-site the “politics” of the shrine in the tension between religious experience and semiotic form. Chapter Four blends phenomenological and pragmatist theories of materiality to address recent infrastructural transformations to the pilgrimage site as efforts to “remodel Mary’s home.” One set of new structures outside at the shrine materialize and enact the ambivalent search for a post-socialist lay Catholic leading class that I introduced in Chapter One. Chapter Five takes up my previous concern with gender in order to examine women’s Marian healing practices in secular post-socialist hospitals. Chapter Six beings with a consideration of the intersubjective politics of storytelling and the new role played at Csíksomlyó by the global Catholic radio network, The World Family of Radio Maria.

Language influences not only the world-view but also the self-perceived personality of its users. One explanation for this is that the language used functions as a cue activating different sets of cultural frames within its users – a phenomenon known as Cultural Frame Shifting (CFS). Limited previous research on language and personality warrants exploring this topic further. The current study employed a qualitative design and semi-structured interviews to explore the views and experiences of 12 Swedish-English bilinguals. Results showed self-perceived changes in personality and extraversion, but also the sentiment of emotions being easier to express in English than in Swedish. Possible practical applications could include therapeutic work and treatment of social anxiety and public speaking anxiety.
Språk påverkar inte bara världsbilden utan också den självupplevda personligheten hos dess användare. En förklaring till detta är att det språk som används fungerar som en signal som aktiverar olika uppsättningar av kulturella ramverk – ett fenomen känt som Cultural Frame Shifting (CFS). Begränsad tidigare forskning om språk och personlighet gör att detta ämne bör utforskas vidare. För den aktuella studien användes en kvalitativ design och halvstrukturerade intervjuer för att utforska resonemangen och upplevelserna hos 12 svensk-engelska tvåspråkiga individer. Resultaten visade på självupplevda förändringar i personlighet och extraversion, men också upplevelsen att känslor är lättare att uttrycka på engelska än på svenska. Potentiella praktiska tillämpningar skulle kunna inkludera terapeutiskt arbete och behandling av social fobi och talängslan.

Changes in the proportion of children vulnerable on the Early Development Instrument (EDI) over time can be used to identify communities with an improvement or decline in its ability to foster healthy children. Positive change communities had a significant reduction in the proportion of children in a community deemed vulnerable. Negative change communities had a significant increase in the proportion of children in a community deemed vulnerable. Communities exhibiting positive change fell above the 83rd percentile on a composite of those SES variables found to correlate with EDI vulnerability, while negative change communities all fell below the 83rd percentile. Stable communities were those with no significant change in the proportion of children deemed vulnerable, and meaningful differences were found between stable high and stable low vulnerability communities. This community typology provides a priority setting lens for where early child interventions may be most effective. A methodology for identifying and analyzing a group of Early Child Development (ECD) communities is presented. A heat map tool is created to synthesize all data relevant to community ECD. Community stakeholders have to choose and evaluate best practices for providing a stimulating cognitive and social environment for all children before they reach kindergarten. This includes universally targeted variations of pre-kindergarten programs. New Investments would be required, but there would be a financial return to governments in future health, labor, and crime outcomes.

Preference for smaller-sooner over larger-later rewards characterizes one type of impulsivity—impulsive choice. Impulsive choice is related to a number of maladaptive behaviors including substance abuse, pathological gambling, and poor health behaviors. As such, interventions designed to reduce impulsive choice may have therapeutic benefits. The purpose of this dissertation was to explore two methods to change nonhuman impulsive choice. In doing so, we hope to provide a baseline that future research can use to assess variables that are less amenable to human research (e.g., drug self-administration following reductions in impulsive choice). In Chapter 2, we failed to reduce nonhuman impulsive choice using working-memory training, a finding both inconsistent and consistent with the extant human literature. Chapters 3-5 sought to better understand a training regimen that generates large between-group differences in nonhuman impulsive choice—delay- and immediacy-exposure training. The results from Chapters 3 and 4 suggest that prolonged exposure to delayed food rewards produces large and long-lasting reductions in impulsive choice. Chapter 5 showed that the delay-exposure training effect can be obtained in fewer sessions than has previously been employed. A better understanding of the effects of delay-exposure training on nonhuman impulsive choice may have implications for the design and implementation of a human analog.

This study investigated the relationship between Chinese young adults' usage of micro-blog and their cultural values. Data was collected from a group-administered survey, which was constituted by 484 students aged from 17 to 30 in variety majors in five colleges in Beijing. Results answered two research questions, indicating that there is a strong relationship between traditional cultural values' changes in Chinese young adults and micro-blog usage. The results also indicated that the more Chinese young adults engaged in micro-blog usage, the more likely they would show distinctive features in both Eastern and Western cultural values. In other words, highly active Chinese micro-blog users have crossed the Eastern and Western cultural boundaries and are developing bicultural identity due to globalization in media environment.

This research examines the expression and the construction of the ethnic identity of the Akeu, a minority people in northern Thailand and eastern Myanmar. The research data was gathered by interviews and observation during a fieldwork period in 2012. Ethnic identities are constructed as a process where external circumstances, ethnic group resources and active individuals interact. An important factor in this construction is social change, which forces people to rethink their identities and shape them to fit the new circumstances. The Akeu have experienced profound changes during the past decades. They have been affected by civil wars and conflicts, their subsistence swidden economy has been replaced by market economy, and increased contacts to other ethnic groups have brought in values of ethnic majorities. All this drives changes in their identity. The Akeu see their ethnicity as being based on a shared culture; on biological origin which is reflected in traditions that are perceived as heritage from ancestors; and most of all on social environment, which determines the possibilities to follow those cultural practices which are associated with Akeu identity. Losing contact to the Akeu community is seen as losing one’s identity. The Akeu crystallize their cultural differences from other groups mostly through four symbols: clothing, language, ancestors, and traditions. All these symbols are, however, changing. Traditional clothing is increasingly not used as everyday wear, the Akeu language is not always transmitted to children, the ancestor cult is changing because the young Akeu are often not interested in learning oral ritual knowledge, or because of conversion to Christianity or Buddhism, and traditions are losing their appeal among the young generation. In this situation the Akeu construct their ethnicity by actively making themselves visible among many other ethnic groups who live in the same area. They also modernize their identity and culture by selective traditionalism which underlines certain features of their culture as valuable traditions; by organizing new trans-village activities that reinforce common ethnicity; and by creating new ethnic symbols which are used in order to make Akeu identity seem positive and relevant. Especially literacy in the Akeu language is used to remove the previous stigma of illiteracy and poverty
Tämä tutkimus tarkastele tapaa, jolla Pohjois-Thaimaassa ja Itä-Myanmarissa elävä akeu-vähemmistökansa rakentaa ja ilmaisee etnistä identiteettiään. Tutkimus perustuu haastattelu- ja havaintoaineistoon, joka on kerätty kenttätyömatkalla 2012. Etniset identiteetit rakentuvat prosessina, jossa ulkoiset olosuhteet, ryhmän omat resurssit ja aktiiviset yksilöt ovat vuorovaikutuksessa. Sosiaalinen muutos on tärkeä etnisyyden rakentumiseen vaikuttava tekijä, koska se pakottaa ihmiset käsittelemään ja muotoilemaan identiteettejään muuttuneita olosuhteita vastaaviksi. Akeut ovat kokeneet huomattavia muutoksia viimeisten vuosikymmenten aikana, esimerkiksi sisällissotien ja muiden konfliktien vaikutuksia. Lisäksi aikaisempi omavarainen kaskitalous on muuttunut markkinataloudeksi, ja kontaktit toisiin etnisiin ryhmiin ovat lisääntyneet tuoden mukanaan valtakulttuurien vaikutteita. Nämä kaikki aiheuttavat muutoksia myös akeu-identiteetissä. Akeu-identiteetti perustuu heidän käsityksensä mukaan yhteiseen kulttuuriin; biologiseen alkuperään, jota heijastavat esi-isiltä perityiksi katsotut perinteet; sekä ennen kaikkea sosiaaliseen ympäristöön, joka tekee mahdolliseksi etniseen identiteettiin liitetyn kulttuurisen käyttäytymisen. Jos akeu menettää yhteyden akeu-yhteisöön, hänen katsotaan menettävän myös etnisen identiteettinsä. Akeut kiteyttävät erilaisuutensa muihin ryhmiin nähden yleisesti neljään kulttuuriseen symboliin: vaatteisiin, kieleen, esi-isiin ja perinteisiin. Kaikki nämä piirteet ovat muuttumassa. Perinteiset akeu-vaatteet ovat yhä harvemmin arkikäytössä, kieli ei aina välity lapsille, esi-isäkultti muuttuu joko kristinuskoon tai buddhalaisuuteen kääntymisen vuoksi tai siksi, että nuoret eivät opi siihen liittyvää suullista perinnettä, ja muut perinteet eivät suureksi osaksi kiinnosta nuorta sukupolvea. Tässä tilanteessa akeut rakentavat aktiivisesti etnistä identiteettiään: he tekevät sitä näkyväksi muiden samalla alueella elävien ryhmien keskuudessa sekä pyrkivät modernisoimaan identiteettiään ja kulttuuriaan korostamalla joitakin valikoituja kulttuuripiirteitä arvokkaina perinteinä, järjestämällä kylien välistä toimintaa joka vahvistaa etnistä yhteenkuuluvuutta, sekä luomalla uusia etnisiä symboleja ja käyttämällä niitä tekemään akeu-identiteetistä positiivisen ja merkityksellisen. Erityisesti akeu-kirjakieltä käytetään poistamaan aiemmin identiteettiin liittynyttä köyhyyden ja lukutaidottomuuden stigmaa

This thesis investigates the determinants of Taiwan’s import changes and the underlying factors of the decreasing Swedish export to Taiwan between 1994 and 2005.

The empirical study includes 36 countries from both the Pacific Rim and OECD. Based on a modified gravity model of trade, the regression model aims to examine how GDP growth in the exporting country, exchange rate changes, common language, and membership in APEC affect Taiwan’s import volume. The result shows estimates with expected signs, with 49.8 percent of the vari-ance in Taiwan’s changed import volume explained by the exogenous variables. Exchange rate change and language are statistically significant.

Data on commodity groups of importance for Sweden and Taiwan are also ex-amined, and they show that Taiwan has changed its import demand and has started to import goods other than those Sweden in previous years strongly exported to Taiwan. Taiwan’s regional trading partners have also gained export shares at the expense of Swedish exports.

The results are in line with theory and it will be hard for Sweden in the future to compete with the increasing regional trade of East Asia where common lan-guage and culture are of big importance.

Third party logistics (TPL), the procurement of an integrated set of logistics services in a long-term relationship between a shipper (goods owner) and a service provider, is today a viable option for how companies carry out their logistics activities. Very little has been written on implementation or change issues in a TPL setting; these issues are identified as important, but not elaborated. There is however reason to believe that implementation of TPL arrangements, or rather establishment thereof, involves a complex change process involving substantial change for a wide range of actors in both the shipper’s and the provider’s organisation.

When comparing literature that deals with the TPL establishment process with a stream of research that is concerned with logistics change, it comes to light that there is a discrepancy between the theoretical and methodological foundations of the former works, and what is written in these pieces regarding the process. It is concluded that recommendations for how to manage the establishment process are given without being founded in a theory of process, or research designs capable of studying process. The theoretical underpinnings of TPL literature are founded in a view of change as a matter of conducting rational analysis and conceiving the strategically wisest decisions for the logistics system as a whole. Implementation is viewed as an unproblematic exercise of issuing directives to affected actors, asserting that all actors are rational, therefore rationally conceived decisions will be accepted and implemented accordingly.

Therefore the overarching purpose of this research is:

To explore the change process of third party logistics establishment

To fulfil this purpose the two streams of research mentioned above are combined. A meta-model of process consisting of the three interrelated dimensions content, context, and process forms the starting point for the study of process, but this is not sufficient for a study of change; a theory of change which is capable of capturing the mechanisms of the change process as it unfolds is also needed. Therefore the theory of change of the second stream of research mentioned above is adopted.

The theory of change encompasses three models of change, which are archetypical representations of the mechanisms underlying change processes according to different assumptions of what change is and how change comes about. These models are denoted the linear, the processual, and the circular. One important aspect of this theory of change is that the approach to change should be aligned with the extent oflearning requirements on the actors who are affected by or involved in the change. An actors perspective is therefore called for, and adopted in this thesis.

This thesis is the first step of a wider research effort concerned with studying the process of establishing TPL. Therefore, of the three dimensions of change, the contentdimension is excluded from study in this thesis. Governed by the meta-model of process, two research objectives are formulated:

To explore the context within which the TPL establishment process unfolds and describe the contextual dependence of this process

&

To describe the change process of TPL establishment in terms of the linear, processual, and circular models of change

The empirical investigation applied is a single-case retrospective study, in which the case is the establishment process between a Swedish company and an international TPL service provider. A total of fifteen actors have been interviewed; ten on the shipper side of the dyad, five on the provider side. Although the TPL establishment process is an interorganisational process, this thesis focuses on the intraorganisational process of the shipper, why the empirical material from the other side of the dyad is not used in this thesis, The interorganisational aspect, as well as the intraorganisational side within the provider’s organisation are nevertheless important, and will be included in future research.

The interviews were carried out in an unstructured manner, in which the interviewees were asked to retell the story from their own perspectives. Actors from varying positions, who were involved in the process, are included in the study; in the total sample all groups who were most affected or involved are represented. The interviews rendered ten stories of the studied process.

These stories were then analysed by means of a pattern-matching logic, in order to seek out the important contextual dependencies of the process, and to explore the mechanisms of the change process, as it evolved in context.

After having conducted this first step of the ongoing research effort, four main conclusions can be drawn:

- The TPL establishment process is context dependent.

- Not only rational mechanisms are at play in the process.

- It is important to acknowledge actors, not only systems.

- It is important to acknowledge the process, not only the decision.

ISRN/Report code: LiU-TEK-LIC-2003:27

Students misperceive computer science as only programming; such misperceptions may contribute to students' negative views and reluctance to join this field of study. The Laboratory for Computer Science creates online lessons for high school students that introduce computing theories in an interactive way. A study was conducted to examine how students' perceptions of computer science change upon completion of these labs. The focus of the study is on the student's perspective of computer science and their place in the field irrespective of their identification with a specific minority group. Identifying whether the stigmas of stereotypes are present with the students that experience these lessons and whether a deeper knowledge of the underlying theories in computer science will change these views is the goal. Based on the student feedback from this study, a standardized method of developing and organizing these student labs was proposed and used to create a series of four labs on Little's Law.

Eye dominance can be broadly defined as the preference for one eye over the other and several distinct types of eye dominance have been identified since the existence of eye dominance was first recorded in the 16th century. Since then, eye dominance has generally been assumed to be a fixed quantity, but recent work has shown that one form of eye dominance can change with gaze direction. This finding was directly investigated in this thesis, as was the ability for other forms of eye dominance to switch between the eyes. It was found that eye dominance switching does take place and there is evidence for a hierarchy of cues which trigger changes in two types of dominance. Differences in retinal image size appear to be the cue that is most heavily favoured when determining which eye is treated as dominant. Other cues include eye position signals and differences in luminance between the eyes, the latter suggesting that eye dominance switching is not controlled solely by changes in gaze direction. The relation between eye dominance and the centre of visual direction, the egocentre, was also considered. It was found that the egocentre is unlikely to change location in a manner similar to eye dominance. The conclusion of this work sets dominance switching within the context of a mechanism designed to maximise the amount of data available for use by the visual system.