Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Thangka Art'

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O presente estudo intenta apresentar os princípios básicos, históricos e processuais, da pintura tradicional tibetana, thangka. Tal objetivo se justifica pela escassez de estudos em língua portuguesa sobre o assunto. Ainda que seja perceptível nos tempos atuais uma expansão dos estudos asiáticos no Brasil, em confluência com uma crescente aproximação e interesse pela cultura oriental na contemporaneidade; esta pesquisa, por meio de estudo de campo, levantamento bibliográfico e histórico, busca a investigação e exposição do profundo e específico âmbito do simbólico, sagrado e tradicional na pintura tibetana. Acreditando que o reconhecimento das artes e teorias estéticas não eurocêntricas corroboram a cognição e produção da inestimável diversidade cultural humana.
The following study intends to present the basic, historical and procedural principles of the traditional Tibetan painting, thangka. This objective is justified by the lack of studies in Portuguese on the subject. Although it is noticeable nowadays an expansion of Asian studies in Brazil, in confluence with a growing approach and interest in Eastern culture in contemporary society; this dissertation, by field research, literature and history, wishes to investigate, explain and expose the deep and specific scope of the symbolic, sacred and traditional in Tibetan painting. Believing that the recognition of the arts and non eurocentric aesthetic theories corroborate the cognition and production of the invaluable human cultural diversity.

Orientador: Omar Khouri
Banca: José Leonardo do Nascimento
Banca: Cibele Elisa Viegas Aldrovandi
Resumo: O presente estudo intenta apresentar os princípios básicos, históricos e processuais, da pintura tradicional tibetana, thangka. Tal objetivo se justifica pela escassez de estudos em língua portuguesa sobre o assunto. Ainda que seja perceptível nos tempos atuais uma expansão dos estudos asiáticos no Brasil, em confluência com uma crescente aproximação e interesse pela cultura oriental na contemporaneidade; esta pesquisa, por meio de estudo de campo, levantamento bibliográfico e histórico, busca a investigação e exposição do profundo e específico âmbito do simbólico, sagrado e tradicional na pintura tibetana. Acreditando que o reconhecimento das artes e teorias estéticas não eurocêntricas corroboram a cognição e produção da inestimável diversidade cultural humana.
Abstract: The following study intends to present the basic, historical and procedural principles of the traditional Tibetan painting, thangka. This objective is justified by the lack of studies in Portuguese on the subject. Although it is noticeable nowadays an expansion of Asian studies in Brazil, in confluence with a growing approach and interest in Eastern culture in contemporary society; this dissertation, by field research, literature and history, wishes to investigate, explain and expose the deep and specific scope of the symbolic, sacred and traditional in Tibetan painting. Believing that the recognition of the arts and non eurocentric aesthetic theories corroborate the cognition and production of the invaluable human cultural diversity.
Mestre

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, School of Education, 2008.
Title from home page (viewed on Jul 24, 2009). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-11, Section: A, page: 4231. Advisers: David Flinders; Marilyn Irwin.

This ethnographic analysis examines the life stories and lyrics of four African blues singers. Specifically, it compares the cultural themes that emerge their life stories to the cultural themes at emerge from their commercially released music. The findings suggest that the singers recognize, to varying degrees, the impact of racism, sexism, and classism on their personal and careers. These same themes, however, are not present in the lyrics of the music that they choose to sing. Both the stories and the lyrics reveal internal inconsistencies that mirror one another. The conclusion suggests that the inconsistencies within their stories and music are consistent with their liminal position with regard to dominant and subordinate cultures.

Occupational stress among teachers is a painful, prevalent and costly phenomenon, one which impacts on individuals, families, schools and wider society. A growing body of evidence suggests that individuals' susceptibility to occupational stress is not determined exclusively by environmental or personality factors, but by the cognitive and behavioural transactions between the individual and potentially stressful events. Two major factors which contribute to individual stress are a person's appraisal of events as threatening or demanding, and the strategies they use in coping with those events. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between experience, stress levels and coping patterns in a group of primary school teachers. Two groups of teachers were surveyed, 'Starters' who were in their first year of teaching and 'Stayers' who had at least 10 years of teaching experience. Stayers were divided, on the basis of their responses, into Low-stress, Moderate-stress and High-stress groups. The aspects of coping which were explored are: 1. The range of coping strategies used by teachers in each group, 2. The frequency of use of those coping strategies for each group, and 3. The coping styles preferred by teachers in each group. The results of this study show no direct connexion between stress level and any of the demographic variables (sex, age, religion, piety, teaching experience, full-time teaching, part-time teaching and time away from teaching). Nor are significant differences found between the coping patterns of more or less experienced and more or less stress teachers. A pattern is suggested by correlational analysis, wherein inexperienced teachers (Starters) and highly-stressed experienced teachers (High-stress Stayers) show the same preference for coping styles. It is hypothesized that this similarity of preference relates to role of control in reducing stress, and that these groups are examples of different stages of adaptation to teaching. Implications for the use of these preferences in detecting teacher stress, and for the inclusion of coping strategies in teacher training are discussed.

The overall purpose of this essay, “‘I really hope you guys are enjoying this. Thank you so much for watching!’ - a qualitative and quantitative study of the interaction between YouTubers and their audience", is to study how YouTubers that play and comment video games interact with their audience, what kind of response these YouTubers receive and the interaction between viewers and fans in these YouTubers comment sections. This essay also studies if there is a difference between the response female and male YouTubers receive. The study is based on theories about fan culture, participation culture, collective intelligence, feminism and gender. A quantitative content analysis has been used to analyze 600 comments on six YouTube videos uploaded by six different YouTubers. The purpose of the quantitative analysis was to see what content of the comments most often occur as well as if the comment showed a positive, negative or neutral view of the YouTuber. The result of the quantitative analysis was used as a base for a qualitative critical discourse analysis, which also studied how the YouTubers behaved in the videos. The results of this study showed that the YouTubers mostly received positive comments about their personalities and their YouTube channel. They mostly received negative comments about the way they play the game. The female YouTubers received more negative comments than the male YouTubers, who in turn received more positive comments. The study also showed that YouTubers interact by talking directly to the audience and looking into the camera, by using the word “we” when talking about how they play the game as if they are playing with the audience, by asking the audience questions and by answering comments that the YouTubers have received. The YouTubers engage their audience by using strong expressions and by playing the game during a livestream. The YouTubers’ fans engage and interact by showing appreciation of the YouTubers and defend the YouTubers when they receive negative comments in the comment section of their videos. These ways which YouTubers interact with and engage their audience can be seen as part of a discourse about interaction and engagement online.

This study aims to examine the motivation, experience and benefits of Nepalese domestic tourists visiting the seismic memorial sites after the 25 April 2015 earthquake (known as Gorkha earthquake). A total of 403 surveys was gathered from seismic sites of Nepal (Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Patan). Data were tested to analyze why the tourists are interested in disaster sites and how their experience during their visit impact the benefits of the visits. Additionally, partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was employed to test the relationships among tourist motivations, experiences, and perceived benefits at the dark tourism sites in Nepal. Among the five motivational factors discovered, the empirical results depict that emotional reaction is the strongest factor of the dark tourism motivation, affecting both cognitive and affective experiences. Additionally, this study confirms that cognitive experience is more influenced by dark tourism motivations than affective experience. Among the four experience factors examined in the study, self-reflection is found to have the strongest impact of three aspects of perceived dark tourism benefits, such as knowledge gain, fulfillment, and appreciation. Overall, the findings of the study provide important implications to the management sectors of dark tourism sites, enhancing the importance of providing cognitive experiences (i.e. distributing the educational materials about the dark tourism events and offering the knowledgeable tour guide who can guide the sites) and affective experience of the tourists (storytelling about the events, organizing educational and volunteering programs at the sites). Further, this study contributes to the limited literature in the context of dark tourism and provide important managerial and practical implications based on the case of Nepal earthquake in 2015.

This Master Thesis is the research done in the country of Rwanda. The project leads to study the climate of this country in order to establish whether this climate could be used to produce energy from air and to implement the first wind turbine for serving the nation.   After an introduction about the historical background of wind power, the thesis work deals with assessment of wind energy potential of Rwanda in focusing of the most suitable place for wind power plants. The best location with annual mean wind speed, the rate of use of turbine with hub height for an annual production per year, the mean wind speeds for 6 sites of Rwanda based on ECMWF for climatic data for one year at relief of altitude of 100m and coordinates are reported too.   The result of energy produced and calculations were done based on power hitting wind turbine generator in order to calculate Kinetic energy and power available at the best location to the measurement over the period of 12 months, that could be hoped for long term.   With help of logarithmic law, where wind speed usually increases with increasing in elevation and the desired wind speeds at all 6 sites were used. The annual energy production was taken into account at the best site with desired wind speed at the initial cost of turbine as well as the cost of energy (COE).However, with comparison of the tariff of EWSA, the price of Wind designed in this Research per kWh is cheaper and suitable for people of Rwanda.

I WISH TO PUBLISH MY THESIS

La present tesi doctoral s’ha centrat en el repte d’aconseguir, mitjançant Fabricació Additiva (FA), models per a assaig quirúrgic, sota la premissa que els equips per fer-los haurien de ser accessibles a l’àmbit hospitalari. L’objectiu és facilitar l’extensió de l’ús dels prototips com a eina de preparació d’operacions quirúrgiques, transformant la pràctica mèdica actual de la mateixa manera que en el seu moment ho van fer tecnologies com les que van facilitar l’ús de radiografies. El motiu d’utilitzar FA, en lloc de tecnologies més tradicionals, és la seva capacitat de materialitzar de forma directa les dades digitals obtingudes de l’anatomia del pacient mitjançant sistemes d’escanejat tridimensional, fent possible l’obtenció de models personalitzats. Els resultats es centren en la generació de nou coneixement sobre com aconseguir equipaments d’impressió 3D multimaterials accessibles que permetin l’obtenció de models mimètics respecte als teixits vius. Per facilitar aquesta buscada extensió de la tecnologia, s’ha focalitzat en les tecnologies de codi obert com la Fabricació per Filament Fos (FFF) i similars basades en líquids catalitzables. La recerca s’alinea dins l’activitat de desenvolupament de la FA al CIM UPC, i en aquest àmbit concret amb la col·laboració amb l’Hospital Sant Joan de Déu de Barcelona (HSJD). El primer bloc de la tesi inclou la descripció de l’estat de l’art, detallant les tecnologies existents i la seva aplicació a l’entorn mèdic. S’han establert per primer cop unes bases de caracterització dels teixits vius -sobretot tous- per donar suport a la selecció de materials que els puguin mimetitzar en un procés de FA, a efectes de millorar l’experiència d’assaig dels cirurgians. El caràcter rígid dels materials majoritàriament usats en impressió 3D els fa poc útils per simular tumors i altres referències anatòmiques. De forma successiva, es tracten paràmetres com la densitat, la viscoelasticitat, la caracterització dels materials tous a la indústria, l’estudi del mòdul elàstic de teixits tous i vasos, la duresa d’aquests, i requeriments com l’esterilització dels models. El segon bloc comença explorant la impressió 3D mitjançant FFF. Es classifiquen les variants del procés des del punt de vista de la multimaterialitat, essencial per fer models d’assaig quirúrgic, diferenciant entre solucions multibroquet i de barreja al capçal. S’ha inclòs l’estudi de materials (filaments i líquids) que serien més útils per mimetitzar teixits tous. Es constata com en els líquids, en comparació amb els filaments, la complexitat del treball en processos de FA és més elevada, i es determinen formes d’imprimir materials molt tous. Per acabar, s’exposen sis casos reals de col·laboració amb l’HJSD, una selecció d’aquells en els que el doctorand ha intervingut en els darrers anys. L’origen es troba en la dificultat de l’abordatge d’operacions de resecció de tumors infantils com el neuroblastoma, i a la iniciativa del Dr. Lucas Krauel. Finalment, el Bloc 3 té per objecte explorar nombrosos conceptes (fins a 8), activitat completada al llarg dels darrers cinc anys amb el suport dels mitjans del CIM UPC i de l’activitat associada a treballs finals d’estudis d’estudiants de la UPC, arribant-se a materialitzar equipaments experimentals per validar-los. La recerca ampla i sistemàtica al respecte fa que s’estigui més a prop de disposar d’una solució d’impressió 3D multimaterial de sobretaula. Es determina que la millor via de progrés és la de disposar d’una pluralitat de capçals independents a fi de capacitar la impressora 3D per integrar diversos conceptes estudiats, materialitzant-se una possible solució. Cloent la tesi, es planteja com seria un equipament d’impressió 3D per a models d’assaig quirúrgic, a fi de servir de base per a futurs desenvolupaments.
La presente tesis doctoral se ha centrado en el reto de conseguir, mediante Fabricación Aditiva (FA), modelos para ensayo quirúrgico, bajo la premisa que los equipos para obtenerlos tendrían que ser accesibles al ámbito hospitalario. El objetivo es facilitar la extensión del uso de modelos como herramienta de preparación de operaciones quirúrgicas, transformando la práctica médica actual de la misma manera que, en su momento, lo hicieron tecnologías como las que facilitaron el uso de radiografías. El motivo de utilizar FA, en lugar de tecnologías más tradicionales, es su capacidad de materializar de forma directa los datos digitales obtenidos de la anatomía del paciente mediante sistemas de escaneado tridimensional, haciendo posible la obtención de modelos personalizados. Los resultados se centran en la generación de nuevo conocimiento para conseguir equipamientos de impresión 3D multimateriales accesibles que permitan la obtención de modelos miméticos respecto a los tejidos vivos. Para facilitar la buscada extensión de la tecnología, se ha focalizado en las tecnologías de código abierto como la Fabricación por Hilo Fundido (FFF) y similares basadas en líquidos catalizables. Esta investigación se alinea dentro de la actividad de desarrollo de la FA en el CIM UPC, y en este ámbito concreto con la colaboración con el Hospital Sant Joan de Déu de Barcelona (HSJD). El primer bloque de la tesis incluye la descripción del estado del arte, detallando las tecnologías existentes y su aplicación al entorno médico. Se han establecido por primera vez unas bases de caracterización de los tejidos vivos – principalmente blandos – para dar apoyo a la selección de materiales que los puedan mimetizar en un proceso de FA, a efectos de mejorar la experiencia de ensayo de los cirujanos. El carácter rígido de los materiales mayoritariamente usados en impresión 3D los hace poco útiles para simular tumores y otras referencias anatómicas. De forma sucesiva, se tratan parámetros como la densidad, la viscoelasticidad, la caracterización de materiales blandos en la industria, el estudio del módulo elástico de tejidos blandos y vasos, la dureza de los mismos, y requerimientos como la esterilización de los modelos. El segundo bloque empieza explorando la impresión 3D mediante FFF. Se clasifican las variantes del proceso desde el punto de vista de la multimaterialidad, esencial para hacer modelos de ensayo quirúrgico, diferenciando entre soluciones multiboquilla y de mezcla en el cabezal. Se ha incluido el estudio de materiales (filamentos y líquidos) que serían más útiles para mimetizar tejidos blandos. Se constata como en los líquidos, en comparación con los filamentos, la complejidad del trabajo en procesos de FA es más elevada, y se determinan formas de imprimir materiales muy blandos. Para acabar, se exponen seis casos reales de colaboración con el HJSD, una selección de aquellos en los que el doctorando ha intervenido en los últimos años. El origen se encuentra en la dificultad del abordaje de operaciones de resección de tumores infantiles como el neuroblastoma, y en la iniciativa del Dr. Lucas Krauel. Finalmente, el Bloque 3 desarrolla numerosos conceptos (hasta 8), actividad completada a lo largo de los últimos cinco años con el apoyo de los medios del CIM UPC y de la actividad asociada a trabajos finales de estudios de estudiantes de la UPC, llegándose a materializar equipamientos experimentales para validarlos. La investigación amplia y sistemática al respecto hace que se esté más cerca de disponer de una solución de impresión 3D multimaterial de sobremesa. Se determina que la mejor vía de progreso es la de disponer de una pluralidad de cabezales independientes, a fin de capacitar la impresora 3D para integrar diversos conceptos estudiados, materializándose una posible solución. Para cerrar la tesis, se plantea cómo sería un equipamiento de impresión 3D para modelos de ensayo quirúrgico, a fin de servir de base para futuros desarrollos.

碩士
中原大學
商業設計研究所
103
Following the industrial revolution in the 18th century, human society has advanced at an immeasurable and significant rate. Apace with the improvements in productivity and technology, people have created comfortable and convenient lifestyles at the expense of natural ecosystems. Consequently, mountains are deforested, rivers and oceans are turbid, and the sky is gray. The world is no longer as beautiful as heaven but rather as horrible as hell. Ecological imbalance has led to extinction, the spread of diseases, famines, and natural disasters. Nature is lashing with various disasters, as if to punish people. 　　In religion, hell is the place where evildoers receive punishments and atone for their crimes after death. Today, people are already answering for the bad karma they have generated for polluting the earth, even before they leave this world. Based on the concept of hell, this study will elucidate the karmic causality between peoples’ pollution behavior and the resulting natural disasters that they face. The study allows the viewers to experience the sense of “falling into hell” by combining the Thangka religious painting style and a multimedia interactive design pattern through the combination and transformation of multimedia. The researchers anticipate that the results of present study will serve as a deterrence to awaken people’s awareness regarding human coexistence with nature and thereby, convey the importance of environmental protection.

When I was a young boy I played war with my friends. It was fun and exciting. We would pretend that we were out to fight the bad guys and ultimately win. Looking back at those childhood games after serving in the United States Army for three and a half years, including deployments to Iraq and Kosovo, I had no idea what I was really playing. Playing! It is anything but playing in real war. The things veterans have seen, have done and gone through in war is something that words cannot describe. How do those who have served express what they have experienced while millions back home go on with their normal day activities oblivious to those veteran’s sacrifices? This is the driving question behind my recent works and the impetus for the thesis exhibition title “Thank You.†With this body of work I am attempting to bring attention to the sacrifices of the men and women who have served in order to provide us with our basic freedoms every day. These freedoms are too often taken for granted. We need to have a better understanding of those individuals who have enabled us to enjoy our everyday lives. I want to encourage a better understanding between those who have served and those who have not. I hope to raise awareness about what these brave volunteers sacrifice for us every day.
acase@tulane.edu

碩士
國立雲林科技大學
文化資產維護系
105
Thangkas (in Tibetan language, also named Sku-Thang) is a typical Tibetan art of colorful embroidery, tapestry, or painting on cotton, silk appliqué, or paper in form of scrolling and so called Tibetan encyclopedia. Among these artistic skills, Thangkas with the tapestry skills owned their preciousness by their complicated and tedious time consuming work. Fabric textiles artifacts after a long time, could be easily damaged by water, dust, light of the environmental and artificial causes. Some damages would affect the appearances, the touching and even the smells of the fabrics. Through the effective cleaning and conserving action would prevent further degradation of the fabrics. Cleaning was a irreversible interfering action on the artifacts, an over or unsuitable cleaning could raise the damages. Hence, a thorough consideration and evaluation of cleaning plan to these artifacts was needed. Four-Arm Guanyin Silk Tapestry Thangka was the artifact case study in this study. Through the existing objects and references, materials and artistic technique of silk tapestry Thangka and the meaning of the Four-Arm Guanyin were thus illustrated. The components, construction and composition of the tapestry Thangka were investigated with scientific instrumental analysis and the fabricated methods for establishing the most fundamental information before cleaning and conserving. Colorimeter, FTIR and reflective UV-VIS were used for resolving the components of the fabric, colors of the silk and the fabric consistency of the tapestry Thangka. And hence the project of the cleaning could be well planned after knowing the tapestry technique and the actual contaminated situation. The actual condition, the conserving ethics and the requirement of the owner of the artifact were taken into consideration for the systematic cleaning and conserving project. Colorimeter and digital microanalysis were used before and after cleaning and conserving for dictating the effectiveness of the work.

碩士
國立花蓮教育大學
科技藝術研究所
96
The presentation of light is crucial in conveying religious notions. Different colors represent distinct notions. It is particularly important in the teaching of life and death in Tibetan Buddhism. In the book 《The Tibetan Book of the Dead》 written by Padma Sambhava, it says that Five-Buddha will shine their own light in the first five days during the Chonyid Bardo. There are five colors in the light, blue, white, yellow, red and green. The deceased can be released if he/she can realize the light, and will reborn in the pure Buddha world. The phenomenon of the shinning light by Five-Buddha is explained by Sogyal Rinpoche as “Each one has his specific Mandala style”, in the Tibetan just as the presentation of Thang-Ka. The skin color of the master in Thank-Ka matches with the light of the Five-Buddha, but it is not easily comprehensible in the correlation between the artistic symbols of Thank-Ka and religious notions. Therefore, the research deals with cases of Near-Death Experience domestic and foreign to prove the correlation between death and light to analyze the color presentation of dead light by utilizing the coloring system of Japanese PCCS to analyze the color samples of Thang-Ka with digital coloring, accompanies with the theory of harmonic. Through the analysis of digital coloring, it can facilitate the public awareness and understanding of the religious content of Tibetan Buddhism as well as offering the opportunity for the public to experience the artistic beauty of Thang-Ka. By dint of the process of digitalization, the color presentation of the master in Thang-Ka can demonstrate the colors and scenes seen by the deceased.

Dissertação de Mestrado apresentada no ISPA - Instituto Universitário
E se nos pudéssemos sentar com Kurt Cobain, figurativamente, face-a-face? Kurt abandonado, sozinho e vazio, convida-nos a tentar percebê-lo: “por favor lê o meu diário, olha para as minhas coisas e tenta compreender-me”. Foi através dos seus pensamentos mais íntimos, materializados nos seus diários e através de algumas das suas composições, que pudemos pensar no papel do sofrimento e das tensões internas e externas, enquanto motores da sua obra, e de como esta se apresenta como estratégia que permitiu a sua sobrevivência psíquica e que o manteve vivo até ao momento em que se eclipsou, tal como ele descreveu: “é melhor morrer que desvanecer”. Pela sua obra, Kurt deu forma ao seu mundo interno, materializou o seu estado de sofrimento e por ela tentou dar-se a conhecer e a transmitir o que procurava: uma relação suficientemente autêntica que o reparasse, uma relação que o transformasse e transformadora, na busca de sentido.
ABSTRACT: What if we could sit with Kurt Cobain face to face? Abandoned, alone and feeling empty, Kurt draws us to an understanding of him: "please read my diary, look at my things and try to figure me out". His most intimate thoughts, materialized in his journals and in some of his compositions, he ask us about the role of suffering, the internal and external tensions, as the cataclyst of his work, and how it presents itself as a strategy allowing his psychic survival that kept him alive until he was eclipsed, as he described: "It is better to die than to fade away". Through his work, Kurt shaped his inner world, materialized his state of suffering and tried to draw knowledge of who he was and who he was looking for: an authentic relationship that would repair him, a relationship that would transform him and cause transformation in the search of meaning.

The focus of this study is on a rural South Island community and how it managed the dramatic social changes over the past fifty years. Government policies, changes in international trade and markets, environmental policies, globalisation, change in the structure of local and regional government and legislative changes impacted on all New Zealanders during this period but the rural hinterland of New Zealand was affected in particular ways. The township which is the focus of this study is Tuatapere on the south west corner of southern New Zealand. The researcher grew up in the district and witnessed the changes from a flourishing timber and farming service centre to a quaint tourist town. The residents and how these changes impacted on their lives are explored in this thesis through the eyes of eight long term residents. This is a qualitative study in which four men and four women were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire exploring their views on social change, the way the community has responded to changes in service provision, how they have managed the move from being a vibrant rural service community to a tourist town. This thesis celebrates their successes, tells of their hardships, explores their attitudes to change, records their life work choices and decision making. Five themes were identified from the literature and provide a framework for this study: historical influences and cultural expectations, impact of Government decisions on their lives, sense of community, sense of self and access to services. The population in rural communities has been slowly decreasing over the years as urbanisation has been a reality in New Zealand. Services within the area have diminished and younger families have moved away to seek employment elsewhere. The remaining residents are an ageing population. This brings with it a range of interesting issues for the community. The elderly have to travel for their health and other service needs and the unavailability of regular daily transport services makes it difficult for them to meet appointments. They have to rely on family and friends for transport and many no longer have the family available to support them locally. This older population also provides the pool of volunteers for recreational and social functions. The elderly feel burdened with this responsibility. The geographical isolation provides a sense of wellbeing and attraction for the residents but it also has its disadvantages. The remoteness is a deterrent for access for tourists that would bring financial advantages to the community. The isolation is also a deterrent for new inhabitants who would provide the much needed contribution to the social functioning of the community. In spite of the aforementioned difficulties with living in a remote rural corner of New Zealand the participants expressed a determination and stoicism that can only be admired. Their life stories are presented in this research

This thesis is concerned with the Czech doctor's campaign "Thanks, we are leaving" on the background of the health care system in the Czech Republic. The campaign started in 2010 by the Czech doctors trying to focus on the working conditions, salary conditions, educational system and some failures of the health care system with the aim to improve it. The campaign resulted in February 2011 in a compromise between doctors and Ministry of Health. This thesis focuses especially on media and on the interest group LOK (Medical union trade club) which set the agenda. The perception of the campaign is ambiguous both for the public and for the doctors themselves. The individual milestones of campaign are explained by the theory of punctuated equilibrium from the authors Bryan D. Jones and Frank R. Baumgartner. Using many helpful methods such as content analysis of media messages, semi- structured interviews with particular actors, analysis of secondary sources, stakeholder analysis or analysis of selected events in health policy I explained the core events and actors who participated in this campaign. The theoretical concepts used in this thesis are: public policy in its multidisciplinary meaning, health policy and health care system, punctuated equilibrium theory, theories concerned with interest groups...

This Master Thesis is the research done in the country of Rwanda. The project leads to study the climate of this country in order to establish whether this climate could be used to produce energy from air and to implement the first wind turbine for serving the nation.   After an introduction about the historical background of wind power, the thesis work deals with assessment of wind energy potential of Rwanda in focusing of the most suitable place for wind power plants. The best location with annual mean wind speed, the rate of use of turbine with hub height for an annual production per year, the mean wind speeds for 6 sites of Rwanda based on ECMWF for climatic data for one year at relief of altitude of 100m and coordinates are reported too.   The result of energy produced and calculations were done based on power hitting wind turbine generator in order to calculate Kinetic energy and power available at the best location to the measurement over the period of 12 months, that could be hoped for long term.   With help of logarithmic law, where wind speed usually increases with increasing in elevation and the desired wind speeds at all 6 sites were used. The annual energy production was taken into account at the best site with desired wind speed at the initial cost of turbine as well as the cost of energy (COE).However, with comparison of the tariff of EWSA, the price of Wind designed in this Research per kWh is cheaper and suitable for people of Rwanda.

Rwanda has considerable opportunities development energy from hydro sources, methane gas, solar and peat deposits. Most of these energy sources have not been fully exploited, such as solar, wind and geothermal. As such wood is still being the major source of energy for 94 per cent of the population and imported petroleum products consume more than 40 per cent of foreign exchange. Energy is a key component of the Rwandan economy. It is thus recognized that the current inadequate and expensive energy supply constitutes a limiting factor to sustainable development. Rwanda’s Vision 2020 emphasizes the need for economic growth, private investment and economic transformation supported by a reliable and affordable energy supply as a key factor for the development process. To achieve this transformation, the country will need to increase energy production and diversify into alternative energy sources. Rwandan nations don’t have small-scale solar, wind, and geothermal devices in operation providing energy to urban and rural areas. These types of energy production are especially useful in remote locations because of the excessive cost of transporting electricity from large-scale power plants. The application of renewable energy technology has the potential to alleviate many of the problems that face the people of Rwanda every day, especially if done so in a sustainable manner that prioritizes human rights.