Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'History of human and social sciences'

This study uses the professional trajectory of the Harvard-trained physical chemist and physiologist Lawrence Joseph Henderson to show how the nascent and highly mobile interconnections between biomedicine and social theory began to crystallize around the concept of the social system in the middle decades of the twentieth century. The social system became a powerful and persuasive way of relating vastly different concepts and their consequences, e.g., the laboratory and social life. By focusing on L.J. Henderson and the social system, this study brings the history of biomedicine into dialogue with the history of the social sciences in a new and interesting way by offering an alternative (pre-cybernetics) genealogy of systems theory. This dissertation is an examination of Henderson's cross-disciplinary application of the concept of the social system in three domains: the social sciences, medicine, and industry. Henderson is a historically interesting case because he allows us a unique point of view--the ability to see border crossings between the social sciences and the life sciences in more than one domain. I argue that the transformation of social theory in inter-war America should be understood as part of a broader set of mid-twentieth century developments in the life sciences in general, and human physiology in particular.
History of Science

What does it mean to be cruel to an animal? What does it mean for an animal to suffer? These are the questions embedded in the term "cruelty to animals," which has seemed, at first glance, a well defined term in modern America, in so far as it has been codified in anti-cruelty statutes. Cruelty to animals has been a disputed notion, though. What some groups call cruel, others call business, science, culture, worship, and art. Contests over the humane treatment of animals have therefore been contests over history, ideology, culture, and knowledge in which a variety of social actors-- animal scientists, cockfighters, filmmakers, FBI agents, members of Congress, members of PETA, and many, many others--try to decide which harms against animals and which forms of animal suffering are justifiable. Behaving Like Animals examines these contests in the United States from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present, focusing on four practices that modern American animal advocates have labeled cruel: malicious animal abuse, cockfighting, intensive animal agriculture, and the harming of animals on film. These case studies broadly trace the contours of American attitudes toward human cruelty and animal suffering over the last century. They also trace the historical evolution of the ideas embedded in the term “cruelty to animals.” Cruelty to animals has been the structuring logic of animal advocacy for two centuries, and historians have followed its development through the nineteenth century as a constellation of ideas about human and animal natures, about cruelty and kindness, and about suffering and sentience—very old ideas rooted in western intellectual thought and given shape by nineteenth-century sentimental culture. Behaving Like Animals follows this historical and intellectual thread into the twenty-first century, and reveals how these old ideas adapted to modern and evolving regimes of knowledge, science, and law, as they became thickly knotted in America’s varied and transforming social, cultural, intellectual, political, and legal contexts. That process has had varied and far-reaching implications in modern American culture, structuring social relations among Americans while shaping understandings of the place of animals in American society. Behaving Like Animals tells this history.

This thesis examines the Chinese economy by focusing on the specialized human capital themes of production processes, regional productivity disparities and convergence, cost competitiveness comparisons and private returns to education from 1978 to 2009. Chapter 2 reviews the growth accounting model and measurement methods of its components such as capital services, labour inputs, labour composition index and Total Factor Productivity index. China’s spectacular economic growth is from unequal performance of provinces and regions. Thus, chapter 3 examines effects of the physical and human capital on disparities and convergence of labour productivity, Total Factor Productivity and average wages in China, incorporating the market reform factors. We find that composition-adjusted human capital is more important than capital services in the production function. We also overcome the endogeneity of schooling in the wage function with instrumental variables. In chapter 4, we discuss industrial disparities and convergence across countries and provinces from labour costs perspective to figure out industries with comparative competitiveness advantage. Moreover, we correct the Heckman selection bias problems of education returns in chapter 5. We find that education returns keep on rising over time, which support human capital hypothesis rather than the signalling effect for all age groups except the group educated during the “Cultural Revolution”.

Social theorists have long argued that literacy is one of the principal causes and hallmark features of complex society. However, the relationship between literacy and social complexity remains poorly understood because the relevant data have not been assembled in a way that would allow competing hypotheses to be adjudicated. The project set out in this thesis provides a novel account of the multiple origins of literate behaviour around the globe, the principal mechanisms of its cultural transmission, and its relationship with the cultural evolution of large-group human cooperation and complex forms of socio-political organisation. A multi-method large-scale cross-cultural approach provided the data necessary to achieve these objectives. Evidence from the societies within which literate behaviour first emerged, and from a representative sample of ethnographically-attested societies worldwide (n=74), indicates that literate behaviour emerged through the routinization of rituals and pre-literate sign systems, eventually spreading more widely through classical religions. Cross-cultural evidence also suggests that literacy assumed a wide variety of forms and socio-political functions, particularly in large, complex groups, extending evolved psychological mechanisms for cooperation, which include reciprocity, reputation formation and maintenance systems, social norms and norm enforcement systems, and group identification. Finally, the results of a cross-cultural historical survey of first-generation states (n=10) reveal that simple models assuming single cause-and-effect relationships between literacy and complex forms of socio-political organisation must be rejected. Instead, literacy and first-generation state-level polities appear to have interacted in a complex positive feedback loop. This thesis contributes to the wider goal of transforming social and cultural anthropology into a cumulative and rapid-discovery science.

This thesis, an environmental history of a selected number of Swedish military training environments, is based on observation of military landscapes with a permanent presence of military-related objects and activities, all of which leave their traces in the environment, and how continued military activity is legitimised with environmental arguments. By also observing military policies and documents, I look into how the Swedish military frame their own training environments, and how ‘environmentalist’ discourses is adopted to justify past and present activities. The military landscapes must also be considered in a wider context of geopolitics and security; hence I also include an historical analysis of military land appropriation and defense policy in Sweden. An important contribution with this thesis, besides provide a Swedish context to studies of military landscapes, lies also in testing a historical ecological framework in analyses and methods when approaching research on military landscapes, as I consider this thesis as a pilot-project on Swedish military landscapes providing incentives for further studies. The Swedish military landscapes studied in this thesis have both a centennial and decadal presence of military activities. Some training sites such as Marma and Revinge, which are also Natura 2000 areas, have had a military presence since the 19th century, and the various military structures and buildings promote a kind of military biography, an identity tied to landscapes, reinforcing military presence. The presentation of military sites as ecological refuges for rare species and habitats is evident in the management plans for the studied landscapes. The way military space is understood, legitimised and produced from the perspectives of the military policy level is, as I will argue, centred on two core motivations. First, it is that military presence in a landscape is the product of a militarisation processes, considering a geopolitical context and defense policies. The military presence has long-term effects in form of an alteration of physical nature and development of a high biodiversity. Second, the long-term positive effects, enhances an environmentalist discourse within the military when it comes to legitimise past and present military space, and to justify a continued military presence in a landscape.
Denna uppsats, en miljöhistoria av ett utvalt antal svenska militära övningsområden, är baserat på en observation av militära landskap med en permanent närvaro av militärrelaterade objekt och aktiviteter vilka lämnar sina spår i miljön, och hur fortsatt militär aktivitet legitimeras genom miljöargument. Jag analyserar militära riktlinjer och dokument, för att se på hur svensk militär förhåller sig till dess övningsområden, och hur diskurser om miljövård används för att motivera fortsatt militär aktivitet. De militära landskapen bör studeras i en större geopolitisk säkerhetskontext; därför inkluderar jag också en historisk studie av svensk försvarspolitik och militära markanskaffningar. En viktig insats med denna uppsats, förutom att bidra med en svensk kontext till militära landskapsstudier, är att testa ett historiskt-ekologiskt ramverk i analys och metod vid studier av militära landskap då jag anser att denna uppsats är ett pilot-projekt för militära landskapsstudier i Sverige och ger incitament till vidare forskning i ämnet.   De svenska militära landskapen som studeras här har upp till en hundraårig närvaro av militär aktivitet. Vissa övnings- och skjutfält såsom Marma och Revingehed, vilka också är Natura 2000- områden, har haft militär aktivitet sedan slutet av 1800- talet, och de varierande militära ytorna och byggnaderna främjar en militär biografi, en identitet knuten till landskapet, vilken förstärker fortsatt militär närvaro. Presentationen av de militära fälten som ekologiska refuger av sällsynta arter och habitat är uppenbar i skötsel- och vårdplanerna av de studerade landskapen. Sättet som det militära landskapet förstås, legitimeras och produceras ur militärperspektiv i policy och dokument är, som jag kommer argumentera, koncentrerade kring två faktorer. För det första, militär närvaro i ett landskap är ett resultat av en militariseringsprocess baserat på en geopolitisk kontext och försvarsbeslut. Militär närvaro har en långsiktig effekt i form av en förändring av den fysiska naturen och utvecklingen av en biologisk mångfald. För det andra, de långsiktiga positiva effekterna underbygger en naturvårdsdiskurs inom militären när det kommer till att motivera dåtida och nuvarande militär landskapsanvändning, och för att rättfärdiga en fortsatt militär närvaro.

Maximilien Sorre (1880-1962) s’est fait le promoteur d’une écologie humaine en géographie. De sa thèse Les Pyrénées méditerranéennes. Étude de géographie biologique (1913) à son ouvrage Les fondements biologiques de la géographie humaine. Essai d’une écologie de l’homme (1943), il porte une attention particulière aux relations entre l’homme et le milieu vivant. Ainsi, il se distingue des autres géographes par la diversité et l’originalité de ses préoccupations : les genres de vie, les maladies, l’alimentation, le climat urbain, les «milieux artificiels», etc. Ce faisant, il s’inscrit dans de multiples réseaux savants — de biologistes, médecins, sociologues et psychologues. Ses écrits se démarquent également par une dimension généraliste et spéculative, quand ses contemporains privilégient souvent une approche régionale. Pour autant, le savant participe pleinement aux lieux disciplinaires de son temps. Professeur à l’université de Lille dans l’entre-deux-guerres, auteur de volumes pour la Géographie Universelle, puis titulaire d’une chaire à la Sorbonne et directeur des Annales de Géographie dans les années 1940, Maximilien Sorre finit sa carrière comme directeur du Centre d’Études Sociologiques. Le caractère brillant, mais somme toute traditionnel, de sa trajectoire contraste avec la relative singularité de ses centres d’intérêts. Cette étude biographique cherche donc à ressaisir la tension ou la coexistence entre ces différentes inscriptions savantes, à penser l’articulation, au sein d’une même vie, entre un principe de conformation — ou de reproduction — et un principe de singularisation permettant l’innovation scientifique
Maximilien Sorre (1880-1962) promoted human ecology in geography. From his thesis, entitled Les Pyrénées méditerranéennes. Étude de géographie biologique (1913), to his 1943 essay Les fondements biologiques de la géographie humaine. Essai d’une écologie de l’homme, his work focuses on the relationships between human beings and the living environment. Thus he distinguishes himself from other geographers because of the diversity and originality of his preoccupations: lifestyles (“genres de vie”), illnesses, diet, urban climate, “artificial environments”, etc. In doing so, he is part of numerous learned networks – of biologists, doctors, sociologists and psychologists. His written works also differentiate themselves because they have a general and speculative dimension, while his contemporaries often favour a regional approach. Nevertheless, the scholar is fully involved in the places of knowledge of his time. He is a professor at the university of Lille between the wars, the author of some volumes for Géographie Universelle, he then holds a chair at the Sorbonne and directs Annales de Géographie in the 1940s, Maximilien Sorre ends his career as the head of Centre of Sociological Research. The brilliant, yet traditional nature of his path contrasts with the relative singularity of his interests. Therefore this biographical study attempts to grasp the tension or the coexistence between these different learned inscriptions, to reflect on the articulation, during his lifetime, between a principle of conformation – or reproduction – and a principle of wishing to stand out, thus enabling scientific innovation

Charting the trans-Atlantic movement of ‘dynamic’ psychiatry from The Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic, Baltimore, to Gartnavel Mental Hospital, Glasgow, this thesis throws light upon the resultant ‘dynamic’ case note records, produced in Gartnavel during the 1920s. By undertaking an in-depth, qualitative analysis of Gartnavel’s case note records and corresponding archival materials, I explore the polemical question, posed, amongst others, by Foucault, of how psychiatry achieves its distinct status as a science of the individual. Foucault, most notably in Discipline and Power, ascribes to the psychiatric profession the power to fashion individual patient histories into cases, cases which simultaneously emphasise the individuality of a patient, while condensing, i.e. ‘fixing’ their identities that they may be constituted ‘an object for a branch of knowledge and a hold for a branch of power’. This thesis, while recognising the validity of this argument, explores how the clinical practices and philosophical outlook of dynamic psychiatry in the early twentieth century enabled both patient and psychiatrist to negotiate the construction of the psychiatric case note record, and consequently of patients’ individual identities. D. K. Henderson, physician superintendent of Gartnavel between 1921 and 1932, was one of the first, if not the first psychiatrist fully to incorporate dynamic principles into the working practices of a British mental hospital. Initiating methods of case note taking and staff meeting consultation (now integral components of modern day psychiatric practice) he transported the teachings of his mentor, the Swiss émigré psychiatrist Adolf Meyer, to the everyday clinical practices of Gartnavel. The dissemination of dynamic psychiatry through Henderson’s published works and medical teachings is recognised as having integrally shaped the practices of Scottish psychiatry in the twentieth century. However, the significance of the unpublished case note records, produced under his superintendence of Gartnavel during the 1920s, as sources of historical enquiry has gone largely unrecognised. A near-unique archive of ‘dynamic’ case note records is used in this thesis to reveal, what Roy Porter termed, a ‘history from below’ of clinical practices and examinatory processes. For as Henderson employed stenographers and clinical clerks to record verbatim and semi verbatim the dialogues that passed between patients and psychiatrists within staff meetings and mental examinations, I, as Porter himself aspired to, take as the focus of my research a history of the ‘two-way encounters between doctors and patients’. By employing an interdisciplinary research method, one that incorporates Foucauldian, literary, critical medical humanities, as well as more traditional forms of medical history scholarship, I establish a history of dynamic psychiatry set within clinical encounters. Engaging with current debate, evolving primarily within the interdisciplinary sphere of the medical humanities, I argue these records reveal a history of medical humanism, one in which both patients and psychiatrists actively shaped the history of twentieth century Scottish psychiatry.

Directed by the Millennium Development Goal to improve the lives of at least 100 million ‘slum’ dwellers by 2020, national governments and development agencies are driving policy to upgrade and formalise informal settlements. This study is an investigation into the effects of in situ upgrade and formalisation on the vulnerability and resilience of the urban poor in Durban, South Africa. The study examines the relationships between tenure and vulnerability by identifying and exploring how changes to tenure security, introduced through the upgrade process, affect individuals’ exposure to risk and ability to cope, and the ways in which identity and social relations influence those effects. The data are drawn from twenty-four ethnographies of residents living in three low income settlements in/around Durban each at different stages in the upgrade process. The findings of the study show that many residents are better off following an upgrade – ownership claims are better protected, they are more comfortable in their homes and able to improve livelihoods. However, these security and resilience gains are undermined by the high levels of crime and violence that continue post-upgrade and affect the desirability of a location and the ability of people to live there. Furthermore, the manner in which the process is implemented reconfigures local power relations, without meaningfully altering them; thus continuing to tie residents’ wellbeing to social rules administered by informal institutions. These findings challenge conceptualisations of ‘tenure security’ and the conventional orthodoxy of upgrading.

La question qui est au cœur de cette thèse peut donc être formulée d'une manière apparemment simple, à savoir : si la langue est un système, quels sont les éléments qui la constituent ? Cette simplicité n'est pourtant qu'apparente, et dissimule, en réalité, une grande complexité. Une réponse acceptable à cette question consisterait en effet non simplement en une affirmation qui précise, par exemple, que les éléments du système Langue sont tels et tels. Elle devrait comporter, également, une explication de leur mode (ou leurs modes) d'interaction, une formulation de leurs lois, une définition de leurs propriétés intrinsèques et de leurs caractéristiques communes, bref une explicitation de tout ce qui justifie que l'on soit autorisé à parler d'« éléments » faisant partie d'un « système » (en l'occurrence, d'une langue), et d'un « système » composé de ce(s) type(s) d'« éléments ». La description d'un élément équivaut – c'est Saussure qui l'a enseigné – à une description du système auquel cet élément participe, c'est-à-dire à une détermination des (types de) rapports qui relient les éléments entre eux. De ce point de vue, la question de savoir quelles sont les entités qui composent le système Langue est une problématique qui porte de manière directe sur la notion du système « Langue », tout court, tel que Saussure le concevait. Cette thèse comporte trois parties. La première, consacrée à la notion de « système », essaye de montrer qu'il existe chez Saussure des fluctuations, et qu'il est possible de dégager au moins deux configuration nettement différentes : l'une nommée par Saussure « système d'oppositions », l'autre « système » (ou « mécanisme », ou encore « organisme ») « grammatical ». La deuxième partie, consacrée à la notion de « valeur », tente de montrer qu'il est possible de trouver, chez Saussure, au moins deux configurations différentes : l'une suivant une voie purement négative et différentielle ; l'autre, plus complexe, comportant des éléments non réductibles à des différences pures. Notre hypothèse a été que ces configurations théoriques distinctes sont issues, chez Saussure, du traitement de problématiques différentes, comportant des éléments définissables, par conséquent, de manière différente. Le pari de notre travail a été de tenter d'expliquer ces deux configurations en prenant pour base la notion d'« entité », dont la définition, disait Saussure, est « la première tâche » de la linguistique.

Le langage du corps tient une place prépondérante dans la communication sociale et ceci dès la petite enfance. L'objectif de ce travail de thèse est de déterminer la contribution du corps en action dans la compréhension des interactions sociales (IS). L'approche développementale nous renseigne sur les mécanismes présidant à sa mise en place chez l'enfant, être éminemment social. En revanche dans l'autisme, trouble neurodéveloppemental complexe, la dimension sociale est altérée. Nos études questionnent dans cette pathologie l'utilisation de l'information portée par le corps en mouvement, dans un contexte social. L'originalité de notre paradigme expérimental repose sur l'utilisation de mouvements humains (MH), ou animations en points lumineux, qui permettent d'isoler l'information sociale portée par le corps en action. Nous avons présenté à nos sujets des scènes visuelles présentant deux acteurs engagés dans une interaction sociale ou pas. Une double approche, comportementale et en IRMf, nous éclaire sur l'utilisation et la mise en place de la simulation motrice et nous permet de questionner son implication dans l'autisme. Nous montrons que les enfants entre 4 et 6 ans et les enfants autistes utilisent les informations visuelles portées par le MH pour comprendre une IS, bien que leurs performances ne soient pas encore optimales. Chez l'adulte, en plus du réseau de la mentalisation attendu, nous avons mis en évidence l'importance du réseau des mécanismes miroirs dans la cognition sociale. Chez l'enfant, l'IRMf nous a permis de rapporter pour la première fois un recrutement fonctionnel précoce du gyrus frontal inférieur, siège du système des neurones miroirs, lors de l'observation des scènes sociales. La discussion générale établit un lien étroit entre la mise en place du mécanisme miroir et la construction des représentations de l'action, elle interroge aussi l'intégrité de ce processus dans l'autisme. En conclusion, ces études ouvrent la voie au rôle fondateur du mécanisme miroir dans le développement social de l'enfant.

The curriculum developed in this project was designed to meet the requirements of the Clay County gifted program. It provides a comprehensive American history curriculum, discovery through the Civil War, to promote mastery of the content area, increase involvement and interest of students in learning through the reduction of irrelevant and redundant material, and encourage individual initiative for one/sown investigations. The program consists of a series of independent studies in which the teacher is a facilitator who sets the stage and encourages students' endeavors. The study units developed for this project include objectives representing all levels in Bloom/s Taxonomy. The curriculum was evaluated by pilot-testing and surveying the students involved, as well as by surveying a team of teachers of the gifted and a university faculty member in social studies education.

Au-delà des perspectives offertes par les premières études historiques dans le domaine de l’hôtellerie, nous avons voulu souligner au travers de cette thèse combien l’hébergement temporaire payant dans la ville ne pouvait clairement pas se concevoir de manière unidimensionnelle. L’hôtellerie ne doit pas être considérée comme une industrie tournée exclusivement vers les habitudes touristiques des plus fortunés, ni être cantonnée aux chambrées ouvrières misérables. Entre ces deux extrêmes, quantité de maisons se sont adaptées à une multitude de demandes. A cet égard, Bruxelles, ville capitale, constitue entre 1880 et 1940 un terrain de recherche idéal qui permet d’adopter un angle d’approche très large pour étudier l’industrie de l’accueil temporaire urbain.

Notre étude s’articule autour de trois points principaux.

Tout d’abord, préalable indispensable, nous avons analysé de manière extensive la nature de notre objet d’étude afin de dépasser les simplifications arbitraires posées antérieurement entre hôtellerie de tourisme et autres établissements d’accueil. Notre première partie s’attache donc à donner sens aux différentes matérialisations de l’hébergement payant dans la ville (hôtels, pensions, palaces, garnis, meublés…) à travers leurs définitions lexicologique, littéraire, corporative, officielle et législative. Quelles sont les caractéristiques de l’hôtellerie de tourisme et quand cesse-t-elle de l’être ?Quel regard portent les autorités publiques sur ce monde protéiforme, fondamentalement hétérogène et par conséquent insaisissable ?

Dans la seconde partie, nous donnons un visage et une voix à cette hôtellerie bruxelloise en identifiant plus précisément les acteurs du milieu, notamment par le biais de ses associations professionnelles et de ses dirigeants. Nœud central de notre exposé, l’image négative traditionnelle véhiculée par le métier pèse encore de manière significative au XIXe mais aussi au XXe siècle dans les jugements portés sur la profession. La perception identitaire propre des hôteliers de leur métier en est profondément influencée. Ces opinions nourrissent un besoin fondamental de la grande hôtellerie de se différencier des petites maisons familiales amateures par le biais notamment du développement à cette période d’une formation professionnelle nouvelle et rationalisée et d’une position ambiguë par rapport aux revendications des organisations de classes moyennes.

Enfin, la troisième partie de la thèse s’attache à adjoindre corps à notre travail en replaçant l’hôtellerie dans sa réalité physique au sein de la ville de Bruxelles. Cette question essentielle est développée grâce à la réalisation systématique de plusieurs cartes de localisation basées sur des sources variées telles que des annuaires de commerces, des guides, des cartes postales etc. Au terme de cette analyse, c’est une nouvelle carte des usages de la ville aux logiques spécifiques qui se dessine, celle de ses consommateurs migrants, mobiles ou étrangers.

Notre thèse se veut donc d’abord un témoignage de la nature complexe de l’industrie de l’accueil à Bruxelles et de ses transformations incessantes au cours d’une phase décisive de son évolution. Par ce portrait humain et spatial, il s’agit de souligner l’empreinte originale indéniable que le secteur a laissée dans la vie de la capitale. L’hôtellerie, même si elle se tourne prioritairement vers les voyageurs, appartient fondamentalement au passé de la capitale. Ses pensions, ses meublés comme les maisons de plus grande importance, ont tous participé directement au développement de la cité et ont permis que cette dernière puisse réguler efficacement les flux démographiques et migratoires qu’elle a de tout temps suscités. Elle ne constitue donc pas un corps étranger, extérieur ou anecdotique à la ville qui justifierait un trop long silence académique.

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Beyond the prospects offered by the first historical studies in the field of hospitality, we wanted to show through this thesis how temporary accommodation in the city could not be seen as a one-dimensional sector. Hotel should not be considered as an industry exclusively focused on wealthy tourists habits, or be confined to the wretched workers pensions. Between these two extremes, different houses offered specific services to a multitude of clients. Brussels, as a capital city, allows adopting a broad angle for studying the urban temporary hospitality industry between 1880 and 1940.Our study focuses on three main points.

First of all, we have extensively analyzed our subject’s nature to exceed the arbitrary simplifications previously done between tourism hotel and other forms of inns. Therefore, first chapter attaches to give meaning to accommodations’ different implementations in the city (as hotels, boarding houses, palaces…) by studying their definitions in dictionaries, literature, professional press, legislative texts, etc.

In the second part, we gave a face and a voice to this Brussels hotel industry by specifically identifying its hoteliers, its professional associations and its leaders. Central point of our presentation, the ancient and traditional negative image of the hotel industry still exists in the 19th and 20th c. Hoteliers’ self perception is profoundly influenced by this negative reputation. These opinions feed luxury hotels’ desperate need to differentiate themselves from small family boarding houses.

Finally, third chapter attaches to add body to our study by analyzing Brussels’ hotel industry in its physical reality. This essential question is developed through several location maps which are based on varied archives such as almanacs, travel guides, postcards etc. This way, a new map of the uses of the city emerges: a map of migrants and foreign consumers’mobilities.

This thesis shows the complex nature of hospitality industry in Brussels and its transformations in a decisive historical phase. Pensions as palaces are deeply involved in Brussels’ urban development. They have regulated demographic and migratory flows to the capital. Therefore they cannot anymore be considered as superficial and anecdotic actors in urban life.

Doctorat en Histoire, art et archéologie
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When the New Zealand Government restructured the system of the public funding of research (1990-1992) it created Crown Research Institutes (CRIs) as companies operating in a global, market-led economy. One CRI, AgResearch, responded to this environment by corporatisation and instituted a normative system of control of workers which, through strategic plans, vision and mission statements, and performance appraisal processes, encouraged workers to adhere to company goals. This thesis, reporting on an ethnographic study of this CRI, shows how most scientific workers (technical workers and scientists alike) experienced insecurity through estrangement because the contributions they wished to make were less valued both in society and in their work organisation. They were excluded from participation in both organisational and Government policy-making, and felt they did not ‘belong’ anymore. Scientists in particular were also experiencing alienation (in the Marxist sense), as they were losing autonomy over the production of their work and its end use. Scientific workers developed tactics of compliance in order to resist these experiences and ostensibly comply with organisational goals while maintaining and protecting their self-identities, and making their work meaningful. Meanwhile, to outward appearances, the work of the CRI continued. This thesis adds to the sociology of work literature by extending the understanding of the concepts of compliance and resistance in white-collar work, particularly under normative control, by developing two models of resistance. It adds to the stories of the impact on public sector workers of the restructuring of this sector in New Zealand’s recent history, and develops implications for science policy and practice.

Based upon a servey of the Université libre de Bruxelles medecine museum anatomical waxes collection, my Phd aims to study in an historical context the anatomical waxes fron the 18th Century to the 20th Century. We demonstrated who the didactical items created by sculpture ways appeared throw their successif uses from medical teaching to the prevention of the diseases of the time in the anatomical fairground attractions.

Sur base d'une étude de la collection des cires anatomiques du musée de la médecine d'Erasme, ma thèse de doctorat vise à l'étude contextuelle de la production de cires anatomiques depuis la fin du 18e siècle jusqu'au 20e siècle. Nous avons montré comment ses objets didactiques, produits par des moyens sculpturaux, ont été perçu à travers leurs usages successifs depuis l'enseignement médicale jusqu'à la prévention sociale des maladies d'époque, au sein des musées anatomiques forains.

Doctorat en philosophie et lettres, Orientation histoire de l'art et archéologie
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Le monopole des chamanes sur de nombreuses actions rituelles chez les peuples turcophones de Sibérie méridionale fait que l'on parle à leur sujet de «chamanisme professionnel» par opposition au «chamanisme familial» connu dans d'autres régions. Cette thèse a pour objet l'étude des fondements anthropologiques de l'autorité des chamanes de ces populations à partir de l'exemple touva. On examine d'abord les tentatives corporatistes apparues après la chute de l'URSS et les raisons de leur échec. En l'absence d'organisation sociale légitimante, on cherche à définir les principes schématiques des représentations concernant les chamanes, l'origine de leurs pouvoirs, la nature de leur qualité et ses modes d'acquisition. L'examen de la question de l'héritage, replacée dans le contexte du système ancien des relations de parenté et d'alliance chez les Touvas, permet de faire ressortir les spécificités de la descendance chamanique. Le modèle essentialiste et naturaliste qui se dégage des récits d'accès à la fonction de chamane est relayé par l'idée d'une socialisation du talent inné grâce à l'acquisition des accessoires rituels. L'examen des registres de discours et des dispositifs rituels fait ressortir un système logique d'implications entre les compétences des spécialistes et la position négative de l'« homme simple ». Ces principes sont aujourd'hui remis en cause à Touva par l'apparition de scénarios interprétatifs nouveaux liés à la sorcellerie. Cette étude s'appuie sur plusieurs enquêtes de terrain chez les Touvas ainsi que sur un vaste ensemble de sources surtout russophones remontant au XVIIIe siècle.

Cette thèse fait l'histoire conjointe des notions de " race " et de " dégénération/ dégénérescence " entre le XVIIe et le XIXe siècle. Elle envisage cette histoire tant du point de vue d'une épistémologie historique - " comment race et dégénérescence sont devenues les concepts de savoirs divers " (histoire naturelle, anthropologie, psychiatrie) - et d'une histoire des pratiques de gouvernement - " comment race et dégénérescence sont devenues des problèmes de gouvernement ". En prenant au sérieux la liaison entre ces deux notions, on vise à rendre compte de la formation, au XIXe siècle, d'un champ de savoirs qui se donnent pour objet ce que nous appelons " l'homme anormal ", c'est-à-dire cette figure bien particulière en laquelle la folie, la criminalité et les races " inférieures " viennent communiquer comme autant de déviations de la norme humaine, à la lisière du normal et du pathologique. Notre thèse décrit les catégories fondamentales qui organisent ce champ de savoirs. Plus profondément, il s'agit ainsi de montrer comment, loin d'être exclusif d'un discours universaliste et humaniste, loin d'être systématiquement corrélé à un dispositif d'exclusion, le discours de la race et de la dégénérescence est intimement lié à un humanisme théorique et pratique, ainsi qu'à des pratiques d'inclusion qui se focalisent non sur la race, la folie et le crime comme altérités radicales, mais comme des altérations qu'il convient de régénérer, de corriger et de perfectionner par des dispositifs de pouvoir particuliers. Ce sont les ambiguïtés et les apories qui logent au cœur de cette volonté d'inclusion et dans cette analyse de réalités hétérogènes en termes d'altérations d'une norme que nous étudions à travers ce parcours historique. Nous démontrons en particulier le lien profond qui existe entre l'entrée de la notion de " race " dans le champ naturaliste et une position monogéniste ; et d'autre part, qu'on ne saurait comprendre l'entrée de la même notion dans le champ politique et - plus généralement - le développement de tout un ensemble de savoirs sur l'homme anormal, sans les resituer dans la logique du libéralisme politique du début du XIXe siècle.

Si l’on convient que l’économie telle que nous la connaissons – qu’on l’appelle capitalisme ou système de marché – présente des caractéristiques qui lui sont absolument propres et s’analyse donc selon des catégories qui ne valent que pour elle, alors apparaît une question centrale pour l’étude des formes qui s’en distinguent : celle de la construction de concepts originaux susceptibles de rendre compte des économies non marchandes ou non capitalistes dans leur diversité. L’objectif de ce travail est d’étudier l’histoire de ce problème, sous sa forme la plus radicale, à travers les sciences humaines et sociales. Pour ce faire, nous nous intéressons non seulement à la manière dont il est élaboré, en Allemagne, à la fin du XIXe siècle, dans l’œuvre de Karl Bücher mais aussi à l’ensemble des reformulations dont il a fait l’objet chez trois auteurs distincts : Max Weber, Bronisław Malinowski et Karl Polanyi. Nous étudions donc la série des transformations que subit cette interrogation fondamentale, en fonction du contexte historique général, des rapports entre les disciplines et du cadre épistémologique au sein duquel elle est abordée. Nous montrons ainsi que, chez chacun de ces auteurs, ce problème se traduit par la création et l’utilisation de concepts originaux – la réciprocité, l’oikos ou encore la redistribution – qui permettent d’envisager à nouveaux frais et dans toute sa diversité la question de la subsistance humaine
If we accept that the economy as we know it - whether we call it capitalism or a market system - has characteristics that are absolutely unique to it, and must therefore be analysed according to categories that apply only to it, then a question arises that is central to the study of forms that differ from it: that of constructing original concepts capable of accounting for non-market or non-capitalist economies in all their diversity. The aim of this work is to study the history of this problem, in its most radical form, through the human and social sciences. To do so, we focus not only on the way it was elaborated in Germany at the end of the 19th century, in the work of Karl Bücher, but also on the various reformulations to which it was subjected by three distinct authors: Max Weber, Bronisław Malinowski and Karl Polanyi. We therefore examine the series of transformations that this fundamental question undergoes, depending on the general historical context, the relationships between disciplines and the epistemological framework within which it is approached. We show that, in each of these authors, this problem is reflected in the creation and use of original concepts - reciprocity, the oikos or redistribution - which allow us to consider the question of human subsistence in all its diversity

Cette thèse propose une réflexion sur la représentation de la figure humaine au-delà de la " ressemblance cadavérique " présumée par Maurice Blanchot. Nous interrogeons les appels à figurer la figure humaine dans diverses formulations et configurations iconoplastiques, par les moyens associés de la peinture et de la photographie, à partir d'un corpus de postures plastiques contemporaines. Comment la figure humaine se donne-t-elle à figurer pour déborder la seule figuration ? Il est aussi question de reconvocation puisque les œuvres étudiées procèdent de reprises, transferts, reconductions, revenances.Les êtres blanchis peints par Jean Marc Cerino, les portraits flous et dérobés de Gerhard Richter, un ensemble d'autoportraits photographiques assourdis de Jacques Damez, les Faces grimaçantes et les Masques Mortuaires rehaussés d'Arnulf Rainer, les défunts dévoilés et photographiés en gros plan par Andres Serrano et les faces surfacées peintes par Anthony Vérot ouvrent des analyses poïétiques et esthétiques qui nous amènent à distinguer deux voies de l'effacement : l'affaiblissement et tout autant la surenchère. Visibilités défectives ou exacerbées ? Deux pôles se succèdent et articulent la tension dialectique de la donation et du retrait : " figures affaiblies " / " figures excessives ". Figurer c'est opérer par distanciation, retrait, passage, dissimulation, déplacement. Ce travail de recherche relève des rapports de force qui travaillent les figures résistantes à leurs oblitérations mais aussi à toutes tentatives de dévoilement. Ces détours étudiés signalent les infigurables qui se désistent : le visage, l'être, l'autre, soi-même, la mort.

Cette thèse fait l'histoire conjointe des notions de « race » et de « dégénération/ dégénérescence » entre le XVIIe et le XIXe siècle. Elle envisage cette histoire tant du point de vue d'une épistémologie historique -« comment race et dégénérescence sont devenues les concepts de savoirs divers » (histoire naturelle, anthropologie, psychiatrie) - et d'une histoire des pratiques de gouvernement - « comment race et dégénérescence sont devenues des problèmes de gouvernement ». En prenant au sérieux la liaison entre ces deux notions, on vise à rendre compte de la formation, au XIXe siècle, d'un champ de savoirs qui se donner pour objet ce que nous appelons « l'homme anormal », c'est-à-dire cette figure bien particulière en laquelle folie, la criminalité et les races « inférieures » viennent communiquer comme autant de déviations de la non humaine, à la lisière du normal et du pathologique. Notre thèse décrit les catégories fondamentales qui organisent ce champ de savoirs. Plus profondément, il s'agit ainsi de montrer comment, loin d'être exclusif d'un discours universaliste et humaniste, loin d'être systématiquement corrélé à un dispositif d'exclusion, le discours de la race et de la dégénérescence est intimement lié à un humanisme théorique et pratique, ainsi qu’à des pratiques d'inclusion qui se focalisent non sur la race, la folie et le crime comme altérités radicales, mai comme des altérations qu'il convient de régénérer, de corriger et de perfectionner par des dispositifs de pouvoir particuliers. Ce sont les ambiguïtés et les apories qui logent au cœur de cette volonté d'inclusion et dans cette analyse de réalités hétérogènes en termes d'altérations d'une norme que nous étudions à travers c parcours historique. Nous démontrons en particulier le lien profond qui existe entre l'entrée de la notion de « race » dans le champ naturaliste et une position monogéniste ; et d'autre part, qu'on ne saurait comprendre l'entrée de la même notion dans le champ politique et - plus généralement - le développement de tout un ensemble de savoirs sur l'homme anormal, sans les resituer dans la logique du libéralisme politique du début du XIXe siècle
This Ph-D thesis develops the twofold history of the notions of "race" and "degeneration" between the XVIIth and the XIXth century. This history is studied from two points of view: historical epistemology that is "how race and degeneration became the concepts of various knowledges (natural history, anthropology, psychiatry)"; and history of government practices, that is "how race and degeneration became problems government". Focusing on the historical link between these notions gives us the possibility to analyze the emergence, in the XIXth century, of a field of knowledge that dealt with what we call the "abnormal mar that is this very specific entity which agglomerates madness, criminality and "inferior" races as deviations human normality, in an ambiguous space between the normal and the pathological. Our thesis describes the various categories that organise this field of knowledge. More deeply, we want to argue that the notions race and degeneration, far from being external to humanism and universalism, far from being systematical correlated to practices of exclusion, are intimately connected to a practical and theoretical humanism and practices of inclusion, that deal with race, madness and crime as alterations of a norm one has to regenerate correct and improve through specific apparatus of power. Through this historical lens, we want to study ; the ambiguities and aporias that lurk in the very heart of this will of inclusion and this analysis heterogeneous realities as alterations of a norm. We show in particular how we can establish a very stronglink between the insertion of the concept of "race" into natural history and monogenism; and, on the other side, how it is important to study the insertion of "race" into the political field and, more broadly, the emergence of the knowledge of the abnormal, to take into consideration its logical links with political liberalism in the beginning of XIXth century

This thesis draws on Freud to understand the innate human need to create boundaries and argues that ambivalence is an inescapable dilemma in their creation. It argues that a re-reading of Freud’s major thesis in Totem and Taboo via an engagement with the Dionysos myth and cult scholarship allows for a new understanding of dominant forms of hegemonic psychic and social formations that attempt to keep in place a false opposition of polis and phusis, self and Other, resulting in the perpetuation of oppressive structures and processes. The primary methodological claim of the thesis is that prior psychoanalytic engagements with cultus scholarship have suffered from being either insufficiently thorough or diffused in attempts to be comparative. A more holistic and detailed approach allows us to ground a psychoanalytic interpretation in the realities of said culture, allowing us to critique Freud’s misreading of Dionysos regarding the Primal Father and the psychic transmission of the Primal Crime. This thesis posits that Dionysos needs to acknowledged as a projection of the Primal Father fantasy linked to a basic ambivalence about the necessity of boundaries in psychosocial life. Using research from the classics and psychoanalysis alongside Queer and post-colonial theory, as well as extensive fieldwork and primary source analysis, this thesis provides a grounded materialist critique of psychoanalysis’ complicity in reproducing a false dichotomy between polis and phusis, a dichotomy that furthers the projection onto marginalised groups whose othering is linked to a fear and desire of a return to phusis and denial of its constant presence in the psyche and polis. This re-reading of Dionysos challenges the defensive structures, which are organised around ideas of subjectification that posit that phusis must be severed from polis/ego and projected onto Dionysos and all groups that threaten the precariousness of these boundaries.

Interroger la figure du monstre, paradoxalement, permet de questionner notre condition humaine. Si le corps est parfois envisagé sous son aspect tératologique dans l'art contemporain, déformé, défiguré, altéré de multiples façons, manipulé, métamorphosé, décomposé, etc., c'est parce que le monstre a le don de provoquer le regard, en générant tout à la fois fascination et répulsion. Tantôt réminiscences d'êtres fabuleux de civilisations anciennes, tantôt mutants de l'ère industrielle et génétique, les hybrides créés dans l'art d'aujourd'hui sont le miroir des rêves et des cauchemars, des fantasmes et des peurs de notre société. Ainsi, monstres, hybrides, androïdes forment un inquiétant bestiaire qui témoigne des phobies et obsessions corporelles de notre époque, alors que le corps entre dans « l'ère de sa reproductibilité technique » à travers la chirurgie esthétique ou la biotechnologie, qu’il tend à devenir obsolète tant la communication tend à se faire virtuelle. Le monstre possède le pouvoir de se faire métaphore, de devenir un double qui nous montre, (qui nous monstre), l'envers de nous-même, tout en nous permettant d’appréhender l’autre
Funnily enough, analysing the monster allows us to question the human condition. In contemporary art, the body is often considered as a technological entity, meaning deformed, disfigured, distorted in many ways, manipulated, metamorphosed, decomposed etc. Monsters force us to look at them with both fascination and repulsion. They can be either hybrids – echoes of those fabulous creatures belonging to ancient civilizations – or industrial and genetic mutants. As a matter of fact, monsters in contemporary art represent the dreams, nightmares, fantasies and fears of our modern society. Monsters, hybrids and androids compose an unsettling bestiary displaying the physical fears and obsessions of our present times where bodies can be technically reproduced (either by plastic surgery or biotechnology) or tend to vanish with communication becoming more and more virtual. They are metaphors, doubles revealing ourselves or the way we should approach others. Contemporary art transforms the human body into a phantasmagorical, marvellous, frightening or obscene memento mori that reminds us of our mortality

The purpose of this essay is to look at how museums design their activities as tourist destinations through the dissemination of history. In order to research this problem we have posed the following questions: How do museums act in order to animate and interpret history? What does the future hold for the museums? In order to find the answers to these questions we have made a deep-going analysis of the activities of four museums, Nordiska Museet, Etnografiska Museet, Historiska Museet and Naturhistoriska Museet. These museums have been analyzed by means of interviews, observations and the study of documents. Our theoretical perspective is informed by a hermeneutic perspective as well as Foucault´s definition of museums as institutions, and the concept of storytelling. Our conclusions are as follows: Museums have progressed from an Enlightenment ideal to a more post-modern approach, which means that they want to activate the visitors and make them reflect and form their own opinion by presenting different versions of the past that will stimulate imagination. Our belief is that this trend will continue and the museums will become even more oriented towards creative tourism at the same time as they will protect their position as vehicles and creators of knowledge and guardians of the Swedish cultural heritage. Unfortunately a growing centralization of the field is working in the direction of limiting the range of offers and restricting the museums´ potential to offer different versions of the past.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka hur museer genom förmedlandet av historia formar sin verksamhet som besöksmål. För att få svar på detta har vi ställt oss följande frågor: Hur verkar museerna för att levandegöra och tolka historia? Vad har museerna för framtid? För vår undersökning har vi genomfört en djupgående analys av fyra museers verksamhet, Nordiska museet, Etnografiska museet, Historiska museet samt Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet. Dessa har analyserats genom intervjuer, observationer samt dokumentstudier. De teoretiska utgångspunkter vi använt oss av är hermeneutik, Foucaults definition av museer som institution samt storytelling. De slutsatser vi kommit fram till är följande: Museerna har utvecklats ifrån ett upplysningsideal till en mer postmodernistisk inriktning där de vill aktivera besökarna till att tänka själva. Museerna arbetar aktivt för att visa fler perspektiv i historieredovisningen och försöker på olika sätt finna nya sätt att aktivera besökarna för att ge en levande bild av det förflutna. I framtiden tror vi att museerna kommer att fortsätta denna utveckling mot att bli mer upplevelseorienterade samtidigt som de värnar om sin unicitet som kunskapsförmedlare och bevarare av vårt gemensamma svenska kulturarv. Tyvärr går utvecklingen mot en ökad centralisering vilket minskar mångfalden av museer samt ger färre möjligheter till fler tolkningar av historien.

Contemporary scholars seeking to increase Tuber Melanosporum truffle production rely almost exclusively on technological advancements to increase yields, while failing to place the cultivation of truffles, trufficulture, in its historical or local landscape contexts. In this dissertation, I describe how truffle scholars’ conceptualization of trufficulture and landscapes has changed over 150 years in France, while focusing on the French département of Lot. I examine changing relations between humans and nonhumans and how they impact truffle harvests. I analyzed the history of French trufficulture through a close reading of historic truffle manuals, archival research and the classification of remotely sensed images. Shifting from the past to the present, from July 2014-August 2016, I conducted semi-structured survey interviews with working truffle-growers (trufficulteurs) and participant observation at meetings of trufficulteurs, truffle hunts and truffle markets. I utilize actor-network theory (ANT) as both a theory and methodology. Actor-network theory allowed me to follow the impacts made by both humans and nonhumans on trufficulture. I found that truffle harvests in the 1880s dropped by 90%. Highly populated, intensively worked landscapes of viticulture, silvopastoralism and cereal cultivation created conditions suitable to truffles. By the 1870s the phylloxera aphid ravaged grapevines, which made trufficulture an important source of revenue. These advantageous conditions would not last. Post-WWI, yields fell for decades because of an ongoing rural population exodus and consequent agricultural abandonment, which promoted reforestation and closed canopy forests in Lot, France. By the 1960s, French trufficulteurs organized associations to share knowledge and promote local truffle markets to revive production. Trufficulteurs’ utilization of tractors, ‘inoculated’ plants and irrigation systems produced a new form of “modern” trufficulture. State subsidies helped trufficulteurs adopt “modern” practices, in hopes of increasing yields. “Modern” trufficulture has not dramatically increased yields. A few highly-capitalized trufficulteurs dominate production in Lot. Many others practice trufficulture as a hobby. Instead of relying on “modern” technological fixes, my findings suggest that trufficulteurs, farmers and states should reinvigorate extensive polyculture farming practices that maintain open canopy forests, which were beneficial to trufficulture in the past. Actor-network theory allowed me to rethink human and nonhuman relations, and to propose alternatives to “modern” trufficulture.

Appliquée à la formation du lien matrimonial, la clandestinité est une infraction multiple. Contrepoint doctrinal nécessaire pour établir le consensualisme matrimonial, la clandestinité n'en demeure pas moins une infraction aux lois de l'Eglise. Les mariages clandestins sont valides bien que moralement mauvais, potentiellement illicites, théoriquement illégitimes, canoniquement interdits. Théologiens et canonistes craignent d'inextricables dilemmes juridiques et moraux sapant les fondements de l'institution matrimoniale et discréditant l'action régulatrice de la justice d'Eglise empêchée de juger selon la vérité. De micro-processus de prise en charge, de recomposition d'une norme et d'une infraction apparaissent en pratique. La régulation judiciaire épiscopale a construit des instruments de lutte contre les mariages clandestins qui se révèlent des instruments de contrôle socio-religieux au service d'un renforcement du cadre paroissial et du pouvoir juridictionnel de l'évêque

Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, 2018.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 199-211).
This thesis develops formal computational cognitive models of the social intelligence underlying human cooperation and morality. Human social intelligence is uniquely powerful. We collaborate with others to accomplish together what none of us could do on our own; we share the benefits of collaboration fairly and trust others to do the same. Even young children work and play collaboratively, guided by normative principles, and with a sophistication unparalleled in other animal species. Here, I seek to understand these everyday feats of social intelligence in computational terms. What are the cognitive representations and processes that underlie these abilities and what are their origins? How can we apply these cognitive principles to build machines that have the capacity to understand, learn from, and cooperate with people? The overarching formal framework of this thesis is the integration of individually rational, hierarchical Bayesian models of learning, together with socially rational multi-agent and game-theoretic models of cooperation. I use this framework to probe cognitive questions across three time-scales: evolutionary, developmental, and in the moment. First, I investigate the evolutionary origins of the cognitive structures that enable cooperation and support social learning. I then describe how these structures are used to learn social and moral knowledge rapidly during development, leading to the accumulation of knowledge over generations. Finally I show how this knowledge is used and generalized in the moment, across an infinitude of possible situations. This framework is applied to a variety of cognitively challenging social inferences: determining the intentions of others, distinguishing who is friend or foe, and inferring the reputation of others all from just a single observation of behavior. It also answers how these inferences enable fair and reciprocal cooperation, the computation of moral permissibility, and moral learning. This framework predicts and explains human judgment and behavior measured in large-scale multi-person experiments. Together, these results shine light on how the scale and scope of human social behavior is ultimately grounded in the sophistication of our social intelligence.
by Max Kleiman-Weiner.
Ph. D.

The evolutionary history of the human species has generated complex patterns of population structure and linkage disequilibrium (non-random associations of alleles at different loci or LD). The understanding of these patterns is crucial to two of the most important challenges facing biomedical science today: the identification of disease predisposing genes and prediction of variable drug reactions. The genetic variation revealed by these endeavours can also illuminate the underlying population historical processes. Here, I illustrate each of these applications: first, by assessing the demographic context of cultural change in the British Isles. Y chromosome variation indicates that the Viking age invasions left a significant paternal legacy (at least in Orkney), while the Neolithic and Iron Age cultural transitions did not. In contrast, mitochondrial DNA and X chromosome variation indicate that one or more of these pre-Anglo-Saxon revolutions had a major effect on the maternal genetic heritage of the British Isles. Second, I provide conclusive evidence that diverse demographic histories produce strikingly different patterns of association. Elevated LD extends an order of magnitude further in the Lemba, a Bantu-Semitic hybrid population, than in the putative parental populations. A significant relationship between allele-frequency differentials in the parental populations and the Lemba LD demonstrates that it is admixture-generated. Third, I demonstrate that the genetic structure inferred in a heterogeneous sample using neutral markers (a) shows ethnic labels to be inaccurate descriptions of human population structure, and (b) predicts drug metabolising profiles, defined by the distribution of drug metabolising enzyme variants. Thus the trade-off between therapeutic response and adverse drug reactions will differ between different sub-clusters. Assessment of genetic structure during drug trials is therefore, like the empirical evaluation of each population’s pattern of LD, a necessity.

This thesis is about women’s stories of agency in a trafficking experience. The idea of agency is a difficult concept to fathom, given the unscrupulous acts and exploitative practices which demarcate and define trafficking. In response to the three Ps of trafficking policy (prevention and protection of victims and the simultaneous prosecution of traffickers) official discourse constructs trafficking agency in singular opposition to trafficking victimhood. The ‘true’ victim of trafficking is reified in attributes of passivity and worthiness, whereas signs of women’s agency are read as consent in their own predicament or as culpability in criminal justice and immigration rule breaking. Moving beyond the official lack or criminal fact of agency, this research adds knowledge on agency constructed with, on, and by women possessing a trafficking experience. This fills an internationally recognised gap in the trafficking discourse. Within the thesis, female agency is explored in feminist terms of women’s immediate well-being agency (their physical safety and economic needs) and their longer term requirements for agency freedom (their capacity to construct choices and the conditions affecting choice). This feminist exploration of the terrain on trafficking found ways in which female agency takes shape in relationship and in degrees to women’s subjective and structural victimisation. Based upon the stories of twenty six women gathered through an in-depth qualitative study, agency is visible in identity, decision making and actions. Women fashioned individual trafficking identities from their subjective engagement with the official trafficking descriptors. Additionally, their identification with ties to home (expressed via family relationships, occupational roles, national dress and ethnic food) helped to sustain their pre-trafficking personas. Women exhibited agency in risk taking and choices (initial, shared, constrained and precarious), which characterised their journeys and explained their grading of trafficking ‘pains’. Significantly, the fieldwork raised women’s engagement with ‘the rules’ and practices of the host society, as a way of realising new social, recreational, educational, employment, sexual and consumer related freedoms. Acknowledging the international and UK serious organised crime frame on trafficking, the fieldwork also included fifteen interviews with anti-trafficking professionals involved in delivering the three Ps of trafficking policy. This complementary standpoint to women’s stories presents ways in which official actors helped and hindered women’s achievement of well-being and agency freedoms. Crucially, in addressing trafficking as an evolving and integral aspect in contemporary global movement - displaying similarity and cross over with migration, smuggling, asylum and refugee accounts - this research unearthed trafficking exploitations and experiences around transnational marriage, which have been traditionally isolated and overlooked by UK trafficking discourse and policy platforms.

Cette recherche propose une réflexion sur la pertinence d'un " art -action " actuel, à partir d'une analyse d'actes pour l'art, caractérisés comme " hors limites ", à travers une utilisation de la présence physique comme essence et support de l'art plastique, entreprise dès les années 1920 par Marcel Duchamp, et déclinée durant tout le vingtième siècle avec des mouvements artistiques tels Dada, le Happening, l'Actionnisme Viennois, ou l'Art Corporel.Nous étudions ici, aidés d'artistes performers choisis autour de quelques pratiques singulières de Albrecht Becker, Ron Athey et Lukas Zpira, les possibles limites d'actes artistiques, mettant en scène de façon extrême, à travers des performances jugées choquantes, agressives, incluant piercings, tatouages, osant parfois un art du malaise, se jouant des conventions, des tabous et des codes sociaux et culturels en place. Ainsi nous voyons s'il y a lieu, aujourd'hui, de parler encore d'actes artistiques politiques, militants, après l'âge d'or des années soixante-dix, parmi des nouvelles esthétiques du corps humain, celui-ci successivement " héros, sujet, matériau, objet, victime, écran " de cet art-action transgressif. Notre volonté est de saisir l'ambiguïté contenue dans la représentation, et toute la symbolique donnée à voir, par rapport à une première intention qui est une certaine déstructuration à la fois thématique et formelle dans les arts plastiques. La discussion est donc engagée sur l'authenticité et la pérennité de ces pratiques artistiques extrémistes, transgressives, manipulant le concept d'identité ou même la génétique, discussion aussi sur leur statut avant-gardiste dans l'histoire de " l'art pour l'art ", concept porté par la modernité.Ce " hacking " du corps nous amène-t-il-alors vers un devenir post-humain virtuel, une seule existence dans les univers numériques ? Le corps est-il en perdition ou, paradoxalement l'ultime recours, sauvé par ces modifications douloureuses et radicales ?

La réduction du risque volcanique dans les départements ultramarins français s'inscrit dans une réflexion plus globale de gestion visant la caractérisation des enjeux et la diminution de leur vulnérabilité. Les îles de la Guadeloupe, la Martinique et la Réunion sont exposées à une multitude de risques naturels de par leur situation géographique et leur caractère insulaire. S'appuyant sur une approche comparative, aussi bien spatiale que temporelle, cette thèse de géographie propose une analyse des rapports des hommes à leur territoire marqué par la présence d'une menace latente : le volcanisme. Dans cette perspective, le risque est appréhendé, non comme un élément extérieur, mais comme un processus de construction sociale. A partir des scénarios éruptifs envisagés par les experts, ce diagnostic évalue, en amont de toute crise, les connaissances, les représentations et les comportements annoncés des populations exposées au risque. Il envisage les déterminants influents, tels le type de volcanisme, l'histoire éruptive ou l'identité des sociétéscréoles. Recenser les distorsions et cerner les réponses inadaptées permet d'envisager des outils d'information préventive plus efficients. Dans la lignée de travaux s'attachant à des thématiques similaires, cette recherche met en exergue la dimension de la composante humaine au coeur de la gestion des risques qu'on a qualifié un peu trop rapidement de "naturels". Au final, nous pointons les atouts à renforcer, les méconnaissances ou croyances à rectifier et les caractéristiques immuables des sociétés créoles, à prendre en compte pour une gestion de crise volcanique optimisée dans le futur.

Soixante auteurs latins, du troisième siècle avant JC jusqu'au cinquième siècle de notre ère, sont convoqués dans ce travail pour contribuer comme annalistes, historiens, généraux ou Césars à démêler l'écheveau des mythes, légendes, faits historiques attestés relatant un sacrifice humain à Rome et dans l'Empire. Bien peu de ces faits furent eux-mêmes reçus comme sacrifices humains par les Romains toujours prompts à les interdire dans les provinces conquises, affirmant ainsi la supériorité de leur civilisation. Notre regard de penseurs modernes, soutenu par la rémanence toujours actuelle de véritables sacrifices humains dans le monde, nous conduit à explorer la littérature latine et, nous appuyant sur les textes dans une approche comparative, à tenter de distinguer les meurtres, assassinats, châtiments, des pratiques rituelles de mises à mort sacrées d'êtres humains. Le recensement de ces sacrifices, au sens où notre conscience actuelle nous enjoint de les définir comme tels, aboutit à une typologie dans laquelle sacrifiés, sacrificateurs, divinités allocutaires prennent la place que des siècles de respect absolu de la Loi, de la tradition, de la religion ont désignée comme nécessaire à la pérennité des institutions et de l'imperium romains. Au cœur de ces pratiques, souvent maintenues pendant des siècles, la puissance du sacré émerge comme un fondement consubstantiel à l'Urbs, le substrat de croyances générées par l'époque archaïque et consolidées par une fidélité indéfectible aux prescriptions des patres conscripti. L'angoisse des Romains affrontés aux peuples italiques puis aux barbares du nord et du sud, le constat amer que leurs légions ne sont pas invincibles et furent souvent vaincues, génèrent au fil des siècles une psychose de pérennité et de domination imposant un recours constant aux dieux protecteurs. Confortés par l'enseignement des mythes, généreux dans la transmission des légendes et l'admiration des héros, tout imprégnés de la cruauté de récits sanglants, les auteurs latins ne conçoivent les sacrifices humains que comme la mise en œuvre de rites religieux légaux à valeur expiatoire ou propitiatoire dans les situations de danger extrême pour la Cité. Il faut attendre l'apparition des premiers apologistes chrétiens pour qu'émerge une condamnation définitive de toutes les pratiques sacrificielles tant animales qu'humaines, en parallèle au rejet des divinités et croyances ancestrales. Une ère nouvelle s'annonce pour Rome, ère qui ne verra pas la disparition totale de tout sacrifice humain dans l'Empire.

L'identification d'une substance naturelle, produite par un organisme vivant n'est que l'une des toutes premières étapes du développement d'un nouveau médicament. Beaucoup de molécules à visée thérapeutique développées par des sociétés pharmaceutiques ont en fait été découvertes dans des laboratoires académiques. C'est toujours un continuum de la recherche fondamentale vers la recherche appliquée, souvent de la recherche publique vers la recherche privée, qui aboutit à la mise au point d'un médicament. Leur fabrication, directement à partir de substances naturelles, pose fréquemment le problème de l'approvisionnement en matière première. De nombreuses équipes du monde entier se heurtent aux difficultés de synthèse de ces molécules naturelles complexes. Ce travail de thèse retrace l'histoire des travaux majeurs sur la recherche de molécules naturelles d'intérêt médical à travers les succès et les échecs de chercheurs ayant mis leur énergie, leur imagination, leur ténacité et leur patience au service de la science pour surmonter les obstacles et découvrir de nouvelles molécules de grand intérêt thérapeutique. Elle présente également un travail complémentaire de mise au point d'une base de données regroupant un certain nombre de plantes utiles dans la lutte contre le cancer dans le cadre d'un projet de vulgarisation scientifique. La discussion est consacrée à la question de la place du hasard dans les découvertes scientifiques à travers l'exemple de Pierre Potier.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2006.
"September 2006."
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 62-65).
Low-level sensors can provide surprisingly high-level information about social interactions. The goal of this thesis is to define the components of a framework for sensing social context with mobile devices. We describe several sensing technologies - including infrared transceivers, radio frequency scanners, and accelerometers - that both capture social signals and meet the design constraints of mobile devices. Through the analysis of several large datasets, we identify features from these sensors that correlate well with the underlying social structure of interacting groups of people. We then detail the work that we have done creating infrastructure that integrates social sensors into social applications that run on mobile devices.
by Jonathan Peter Gips.
S.M.

In human society people always hold natural distances to each other. These distances are influenced by many surrounding factors like, position situation, social status and relationship. For social robots to interact with people in a respectful and generally accepted way they need to know of and adapt to the human natural distances. To do this real-time calculations on how natural distances are affected by different circumstances could be used. In this project it is explored whether a depth camera can be used to acquire data on what distances people keep from each other in different situations in a hallway setting. The project concluded that a depth camera can be used to acquire data on how people distance themselves from each other. However additional software and hardware would be required for a robot to make use of the information properly.

This dissertation provides some explanations of the causes of poverty in rural India, by investigating poverty determinants that are too often neglected in the literature and in policy debates. It proceeds in three main chapters, each addressing a specific research question. The first chapter focuses on the process of agricultural transformation in the state of Andhra Pradesh. In the early stages of economic development, all countries undergo a process of transformation of their production and employment structure. As a result, agricultural output as a share of total GDP decreases, as does rural employment as a share of total employment. Over the last 50 years, the share of agriculture in total output has considerably declined in Andhra Pradesh. However, the agricultural sector continues to employ the great majority of the labour force. The theoretical section of this chapter shows how structural change is affected by the characteristics of food demand and by income inequality. The empirical analysis, using novel semiparametric methods, estimates food Engel curves and food elasticities, which are used to simulate the effects on changes in income distribution on the composition of demand. The second chapter analyses the stabilising effect of irrigation on household expenditure. The expansion of irrigation infrastructure, together with the introduction of hybrid seeds and chemical fertilisers, was the most important technological advancement in Indian agriculture of the last 50 years. The positive impact of irrigation on income of rural households has been extensively documented, but its stabilising effect has been largely neglected. The first part of the chapter builds a theoretical model that establishes the causal links between access to irrigation, income stability, and consumption smoothing over the seasonal cycle. The empirical analysis assesses the stabilising impact of irrigation on expenditure using modern impact evaluation techniques. The findings indicate that consumption patterns of households with access to irrigation are more stable over the seasonal cycle and over the years. The third chapter studies the effect of income uncertainty on educational choices made by the rural poor. It investigates the demand side of education in order to understand why a large number of rural children do not enrol or complete primary education. The theoretical part of the chapter presents an inter-temporal consumption model that shows how the expectation of income variability negatively affects household expenditure on education. The empirical analysis uses a duration model with time covariates in order to estimate the determinants of child progress in school, and provides evidence that income variability negatively affects investments in education.

Introduction. Only a small proportion of women with oncogenic HPV infections will eventually progress to high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (HSIL) or invasive cervical cancer (ICC), although the reasons why are not well understood. Additional knowledge about viral transmission and persistence is still needed, since some studies have shown that certain environmental co-factors, such as previous STDs or alcohol use may facilitate the sexual transmission of HPV or the persistence of an established HPV infection. The objectives of this study were to: 1) Describe the incidence and clearance rates of type-specific HPV infections; 2) Identify determinants of high- (HR) and lowrisk (LR) HPV acquisition and clearance, and; 3) Identify viral determinants of low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (LSIL). Methodology. In a prospective cohort of 621 Montreal university students, cervical specimens were collected for cytology and HPV DNA detection. Information on potential risk factors was obtained by interview at baseline, and at return visits. Follow-up visits were scheduled every 6 months over 2 years, for a total of 5 visits. Results. The two-year cumulative incidence of any HPV infection was 36% and the mean duration of an episode with a type-specific HR- or LR-HPV infection was 16.3 and 13.4 months, respectively. After adjusting for age and sexual activity, co-factors for HPV acquisition included a recent Chlamydia infection, oral contraceptive use, alcohol use and washing after sex. Some determinants of HPV clearance included tobacco and alcohol use, in addition to use of tampons, daily vegetable consumption and condom use. Slightly different sets of the aforementioned co-factors or predictors were observed for HR- and LR-HPV infections. Non-European HPV 16 or -18 variants appear to be strongly associated with incident low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (LSIL). Conclusion. HPV infections occurred frequently in this cohort, and 24% or 12% of the women remained positive after 24 months with an incident type-specific HR- or LR-HPV infection. Some modifiable co-factors, independent of sexual activity, may facilitate transmission or persistence of certain HPV infections. These results may have implications for public health education and cervical cancer screening programmes.

Within the discipline of sociology human olfaction is rich with social significance yet remains a poorly charted frontier. Therefore, the following discourse is aimed toward the development of a foundation for the sociological study of olfaction. It is formed by the dual goals of unearthing the social history of olfaction and of providing a viable sociological account of the manner in which smells affect human ontology. From these goals arise the following research questions: (1) Have the meaning and social relevance of odors and the olfactory sensorium changed throughout different periods of history?; (2) How have those in the lineage of eminent sociological thinkers addressed the phenomenon of human olfaction during these periods?; and (3) What is the process by which aromatic stimuli are transformed from simple chemical compounds, drifting in the atmosphere, into sensations in a sensory field and then on to perceived objects, to subjects of judgment and interpretation, and finally to bases of knowledge which form and continually reform individuals in the world? The weaving of the sociohistorical tapestry of smell is undertaken to provide examples from thousands of years lived experiences as to the fluid and sociologically complex nature of individuals' olfactory senses. This historical information is presented in a narrative format and is synthesized from data gleaned from books, advertisements, articles in popular non-scientific magazines, as well as from the findings of studies published in medical/neurological, psychological, anthropological, and sociological scholarly journals. Regarding theoretical aim of this discourse, insights are drawn from Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological theory of human perception for the generation of a framework for the sociological study of olfaction. Merleau-Ponty's theoretical notions are modified, modernized, and refitted to more specifically fit the subject of human olfaction and to include all that has been discovered about the biological specifics of olfactory perception since the time of his writing. Taken in sum, this effort is an access point to the understanding of how olfactory sensory perceptions flow toward the ontological unfolding of individuals.

Human levitation occurs when the physical body rises into the air and then hovers or moves around, seemingly in defiance of the force of gravity. Traditionally most levitation reports have originated from seven groups: shamanism, people supposedly possessed by demonic spiritual entities, those subjected to poltergeist activity, Spiritualism, people who believe they have been abducted by aliens, martial arts such as qigong and mysticism. These anecdotal reports generally describe levitation as rare, spontaneous and involuntary, although some people seem able to levitate at will. So far almost no scientific research appears to have been conducted into this phenomenon. In order to persuade empirical sciences such as parapsychology that human levitation warrants further investigation, this qualitative study contains two components. Firstly, there is a thematic comparison of historical and modern levitation reports from the seven groups to see what physical, cultural and phenomenological circumstances they may have in common. Three kinds of evidence have been examined in this comparison: general features of the groups that produce levitation reports; interviews about paranormal phenomena such as levitation with a sample of Christian priests and pastors, Spiritualists and qigong instructors; and six people who claim to have levitated have also been interviewed. Secondly, to assist future researchers in their investigations, the thesis includes a hypothesis generating exercise which seeks clues from the thematic comparison and interviews as to how human levitation might work. The conclusions reached in the thematic comparison are that most members of the seven groups believe in one or more spiritual realms that contain entities and/or energies that can facilitate paranormal phenomena such as human levitation. Members of some groups (eg: shamans, Spiritualists, qigong practitioners and mystics) may deliberately seek to interact with or access these entities or powers, while others (eg: poltergeist activity and spirit possession) may encounter them involuntarily. It also appears that, regardless of which group they belong to, all those who levitate, whether deliberately or involuntarily, do so while in an altered state of consciousness (ASC). The hypothesis-generating exercise, therefore, postulates that certain ASCs facilitate human levitation, and that further research into the capacity of consciousness to access what appears to be transcendent or transpersonal powers is recommended.

Communities neighbouring protected areas often disproportionally accrue the costs of conservation, but they can also benefit from the existence of a protected area. In this dissertation, I investigate the value and spatial distribution of benefits and losses accrued by villages next to Kibale National Park in Uganda, and determine if the accrual of benefits and losses affect the levels of illegal resource extraction from the park. Since other factors may also influence illegal off-take from the park, this assessment is carried out within the context of local demographic and socio-economic landscapes. Illegal resource extraction was measured within the boundaries of the park near 25 study villages. Data for benefit and loss accrual, as well as demographics, and livelihood activities, were collected through focus groups, a household survey, and key informant interviews. Losses to crop raiding by park-protected animals were also collected by physically verifying damage over a six month period. The influence of local urban markets was represented by road distance to urban centres. Accrued financial benefits included park-based employment, tourism revenue sharing, non-governmental organization development projects, and resource access agreements. Although benefits positively influenced attitudes towards the park, only revenue sharing lowered illegal resource extraction. Losses were primarily caused by park-protected animals raiding crops, and preying on livestock, and loss aversion dominated attitudes about living next to the park. Eight villages accrued an annual net benefit as a result of the park, while 17 villages accrued a net loss. Losses were highest within 0.5 km of the park boundary, while benefits accrued up to 15 km from the park. Human disturbance inside the park was spatially clustered, identifying hotspots for extraction of particular resources. Although influenced by benefit provision, illegal resource extraction from the park, particularly tree harvesting, was more strongly driven by local and urban demand and the proximity of households to the park. Household wealth was found to generally mitigate resource extraction, with the exception of livestock-based wealth. Illegal in-park livestock grazing increased where more livestock was owned. To reduce illegal resource extraction from the park, improve attitudes towards the park, and address the spatial inequity of benefit and loss distribution, I recommend that the Uganda Wildlife Authority, in partnership with local governments and non-governmental organizations, focus benefits closer to the park boundary. In particular, they should direct revenue sharing funds, and additional funding sources that can be developed, to mitigate crop raiding and predation. To help manage the demand for wood outside the park, the authorities could incentivize farmers to grow trees, provide tree seedlings to local communities, and expand existing wood saving stove programs.
Les communautés vivant aux abords des aires protégées sont souvent imposées de façon disproportionnée des coûts reliés à la conservation mais bénéficient toutefois de l'existence de l'aire protégée. Dans cette étude, j'analyse la valeur et l'étalement géographique des pertes et bénéfices cumulées par les villages environnants le parc national de Kibale en Ouganda, afin de déterminer si ceux-ci affectent le niveau d'appropriation illégale des ressources du parc. Puisque d'autres facteurs peuvent également influencer l'appropriation illégale des ressources du parc, cette évaluation est réalisée dans le contexte démographique et socio-économique de la région. La mesure de l'appropriation illégale des ressources a été faite à l'intérieur des limites du parc, tout près de là où se trouve 25 villages visés par cette étude. Les données relatives aux pertes et bénéfices des communautés ainsi que les données sur la démographie et les activités de subsistance, ont été recueillies via des groupes de discussion avec les villageois, un sondage auprès des familles, et d'entrevues individuelles. Les pertes dues à la destruction des cultures par les animaux sous la protection du parc ont été recueillies en mesurant physiquement les dommages causés par ceux-ci sur une période de six mois. L'influence des marchés urbains locaux est représentée ici par la distance les séparant des centres urbains. Les bénéfices financiers pour les communautés environnantes comprennent: les emplois dans le parc, le partage des revenus dû au tourisme, les projets de développement d'organismes non-gouvernementaux et les ententes sur l'accès aux ressources. Bien que ces bénéfices influencent positivement l'opinion des communautés environnantes face au parc, seul le partage des revenus provenant du tourisme influence à la baisse l'appropriation illégale des ressources. Les pertes sont principalement dues à la destruction des cultures et à la prédation des animaux de la ferme par les animaux sous la protection du parc. C'est l'aversion envers ces pertes qui domine dans l'opinion des communautés vivant aux abords du parc. En tout huit villages démontrent un bénéfice annuel net grâce au parc alors que 17 villages cumulent une perte nette. Les pertes les plus importantes ont été répertoriées à l'intérieur d'un cercle de 0.5 km aux abords du parc alors que les bénéfices se sont retrouvés jusqu'à 15 km du parc.La perturbation humaine dans le parc a été localisée ainsi que l'identification des "point chauds" pour l'appropriation illégale des ressources. Malgré l'influence positive due à l'avantage financier des bénéfices, l'appropriation illégale des ressources (particulièrement l'abattage des arbres) est reliée à la demande des populations locales et urbaines et à la proximité des familles établies près du parc. Les biens cumulés par les familles ont réduit l'appropriation illégale des ressources du parc, exception faite des communautés élevant du bétail pour lesquelles le pâturage illégal des animaux dans le parc a été plus fréquent. Afin de réduire l'appropriation illégale des ressources du parc, améliorer les comportements envers le parc et gérer la répartition équitable des pertes et bénéfices, je recommande que l'autorité de la faune d'Ouganda, en partenariat avec les organisations gouvernementales et non-gouvernementales, distribue les bénéfices aux communautés ceinturant les limites du parc. Plus particulièrement, ils devraient utiliser les fonds communs de revenu ainsi que d'autres formes de financement potentielles, afin de contrôler et réduire la destruction des cultures, et la prédation du bétail. De plus, ces autorités devraient aider à la gestion des demandes en bois en encourageant les agriculteurs à cultiver des arbres, en fournissant les semis d'arbres aux communautés locales, et en élargissant les programmes existants sur les fours 'écono-bois'.

The purpose of this study is to identify similarities and differences in preparations by Sweden and Finland to ensure food supply in a crisis. Previous research consisting of separate studies have showed a decreased ability to ensure food supply in crisis in Sweden, and an increased ability in Finland. In a time of raising awareness, changing security concerns and political will, the contribution of this study is to simultaneously investigate the two countries and provide an understanding of the historical- and present approaches. By using comparative case study as method and applying International relations theory, a broader understanding of the different approaches by otherwise similar countries is achieved. The approaches of Sweden can be explained by using realist, neorealist, liberal and neoliberal theories while Finland’s approach best can be explained by realist and neorealist theories. The study is relevant for the field of humanitarian action and conflict since it provides an understanding of the countries contingency plans regarding food. Threat assessments from both countries identifies man-made conflicts such as terrorism, cyber-attacks, use of military force and war to have the possibility to create disruptions in the normal cycles of the society and those of surrounding countries. If these threats were to occur, basic needs must be met, one being food supply.

This study addressed CPA perceptions about the need for human skill competencies as professional development. The problem was identified as the undetermined assessment of state level CPA perceptions about human skill competencies as developmental needs. CPAs and education providers may be impacted by this problem. The purpose of this study was to produce an assessment of training needs from local CPAs using a non-experimental, quantitative research method. The theoretical framework was derived from a thematic funnel of industry, university, and the CPA profession. The conceptual framework focused on an organization of Rhode Island CPAs as the population. Data analysis was used with question one to determine a ranked order of perceived developmental need for nine human skill competencies. Data analysis was used for questions two and three to determine whether age anfnd gender groups differed among CPA perceptions regarding these competencies. The research design included nonparametric descriptive statistical and causal-comparative analysis applied to the nine human skill competencies for local CPAs. An online survey was used to gather data. Ranked results indicated low to moderate developmental need, and causal-comparative results indicated gaps in human skills of communication and change management for gender and age groups respectively. Recommendations were made to repeat this study using other CPA populations to compare results, to add qualitative components, and to test actual human skills compared to self-perceived competency levels.

The difficulty of reconciling Hume's use and endorsement of sceptical arguments and conclusions with his constructive project of founding 'a science of man' is perhaps the central interpretive puzzle of A Treatise of Human Nature. Hume has been interpreted as an entirely unmitigated sceptic about induction, causation, personal identity and the external world. His sceptical arguments emerge as apart of a naturalistic programme to explain fundamental human beliefs, but seem to call into serious question the viability of this programme. This work is an attempt to understand the relationship between Hume's sceptical arguments and his Newtonian ambition of founding a science of human nature. It defends two main theses: that Hume's sceptical arguments appear as steps in a more general and systematic argument the conclusion of which involves a causal explanation of scepticism itself; and that the scepticism of Book One of the Treatise is to be seen not as unmitigatedly destructive but as a part of the necessary preparation for the more robustly Newtonian investigations of Books Two and Three. Hume's sceptical arguments support the general conception he has of philosophy, and of its role and value, which emerges in the conclusion to the first book. I show that Hume's exposition of this conception is the conclusion of a complex and systematic dialectic. The work is divided into four chapters. In Chapter One, I examine Hume's commitment to the experimental method of reasoning and formulate a number of general theoretical principles which, I argue, guide the Newtonian investigations of the Treatise. I also assess Hume's understanding of what constitutes a good or adequate explanation in science. Chapter Two considers Part III of Book One. Here I emphasise the reflexiveness of Hume's extended account of the causal relation, acknowledging the constructive programme which leads Hume to formulate a set of normative rules for telling what is the cause of what. The remaining two chapters deal with Hume's main sceptical arguments concerning the attribution of identity over time to bodies and persons.

"...empowering text for human services students that covers the skills and behaviors essential for leaders to manage themselves, their teams, and the organization. Using a unique coaching voice, author Deborah Harley-McClaskey follows a Reflection–Diagnosis–Prescription approach for leadership development with exercises built into the dialogue. The final chapter, Prognosis, offers a workbook-style exercise to help students make a personal change." --Amazon
https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu_books/1115/thumbnail.jpg

The threat of global climate change increasingly influences the actions of human society. As world leaders have negotiated adaptation strategies over the past couple of decades, a certain discourse has emerged that privileges Western conceptions of environmental degradation. I argue that this framing of climate change inhibits the successful implementation of adaptation strategies. This thesis focuses on a case study of the Maldives, an island nation deemed one of the most vulnerable locations to the impacts of rising sea levels. I apply a postcolonial theoretical framework to examine how differing knowledge systems can both complement and contradict one another. By analyzing government-enforced relocation policies in the Maldives, I find that points of contradiction between Western and indigenous environmental epistemologies can create opportunities to bridge the gap between isolated viewpoints and serve as moments to resist the dominant climate change discourse.