Many obstacles still exist toward improving safety standards, practices, and culture in the ready-made garment (RMG) industry in Bangladesh. Workers' beliefs and habits, employers' level of involvement, and gaps in the regulatory framework necessitate an examination of safety practices to build a foundation for safety culture in the workplace. The focus of this study was to contribute to regulatory reform aimed at creating a safe work environment by exploring the perceptions of workers, employers, and government regulators through the lens of the theory on reciprocal determinism. A total of 41 participants, categorized into three groups of workers, employers, and government regulators, consented to face-to-face interviews. The study provided individual and group perspectives of requirements for safe factories and development of safety culture. Interview data were inductively coded and subjected to a thematic analysis procedure. The results showed the groups collectively prioritized the need for training, collaboration, health, and safety, and they raised concern over civil unrest. The groups differed on the importance placed in areas such as protection of workers, profit, and legal enforcement. The study results can serve to contribute to effective government reform by developing self-efficacy of workers and improve collaboration between workers, employers, and government in the RMG industry of Bangladesh.

Les thèses de l'autonomie de la technique et l'identification du progrès au progrès technique ont exclu la notion de démocratie du champ de la réflexion de la philosophie politique sur les sciences et les techniques, au profit de conceptions technocratiques. Ce sont alors l'histoire et la sociologie des techniques qui ont essentiellement abordé les relations entre technique et démocratie. En examinant leurs travaux, nous montrons à la fois l'importance des facteurs socio-culturels pour expliquer le développement technique d'une société et l'existence d'une forme faible de déterminisme par lequel les techniques structurent les relations sociales. La possibilité et la pertinence qu'il y a à faire de la technique un objet du débat démocratique apparaît alors à double titre : d'une part, elle engage chaque société sur le chemin d'un mode de développement que les citoyens doivent pouvoir discuter et, d'autre part, elle est déjà un objet de politique puisqu'elle est concernée par des législations et constitue, sous la forme de l'innovation, un élément majeur des projets politiques nationaux et internationaux. Nous montrons que, confrontée à différentes critiques, la démocratie technique doit être complexifiée afin de ne pas s'en tenir à une réflexion sur l'expertise et la compétence et de pouvoir répondre aux enjeux des conditions juridiques, économiques et épistémiques de la production des savoirs et des innovations comme aux enjeux classiques de la démocratie en général dont elle constitue un approfondissement vers un nouveau champ, celui de la définition du progrès. / The topic of democracy has been excluded from thinking about sciences and technologies in political philosophy by the idea of an autonomous technology and the identification of technical progress to progress itself. Instead, technocratic conceptions of power have been examined. Consequently, it is in history and sociology of technology that we can find considerations on relationship beteween technology and democracy. By analysing how they conceive this relation, we show both the importance of socio-cultural factors to explain technical development of society and existence of a weak version of determinism which implies that technologies shape social relationships. Then, we can understand that there is two reasons which explain why making technology an object of democratic debate is possible and relevant: first, technology commit society on a development path that citizens should be entitled to discuss; second, it is already a political object for it is adressed by legislations and, as innovation, is a key element of national and international political objectives. We point out technical democracy, given the critics it receveid, has to become more complex in order no to be limited to thinking about expertise and skill and to be able to adress what is at stake in the economic, juridic and epistemic conditions of knowledge and innovation production as well as what is at stake in the classic thinking about democracy. For technical democracy is a way to enlarge democracy to new topics, particularly to the question of how to define progress.

Cette thèse traite des mesures des flux d'information dans les systèmes informatiques. Nous exploitons les similarités entre des différents scénarios où la sécurité est une préoccupation, et nous appliquons les concepts de la théorie de l'information pour évaluer le niveau de protection offerte. Dans le premier scénario, nous considérons le problème de la définition des fuites d'information dans les systèmes interactifs où les éléments secrets et les éléments observables peuvent s'alterner au cours du calcul. Nous montrons que l'approche classique de la théorie de l'information qui interprète des systèmes tels que des canaux bruités (simples) n'est plus valide. Toutefois, le principe peut être récupéré si l'on considère les canaux d'un type plus compliqué, que, dans Théorie de l'information sont connus en tant que canaux avec mémoire et rétroaction. Nous montrons qu'il existe une correspondance parfaite entre les systèmes interactifs et ce type de canaux. Dans le deuxième scénario, nous considérons le problème de la vie privée dans les bases de données statistiques. Dans la communauté des bases de données, le concept de Differential Privacy est une notion qui est devenue très populaire. En gros, l'idée est qu'un mécanisme d'interrogation aléatoire assure la protection suffisante si le rapport entre les probabilités que deux ensembles de données adjacentes donnent la même réponse est lié par une constante. On observe la similarité de cet objectif avec la principale préoccupation dans le domaine des flux de l'information: limiter la possibilité de déduire les éléments secrets à partir des éléments observables. Nous montrons comment modéliser le système d'interrogation en termes d'un canal d'information-théorique, et l'on compare la notion de Differential Privacy avec le concept information mutuelle basé sur le travail de Smith. Nous montrons que Differential Privacy implique une borne sur l'information mutuelle, mais pas vice-versa. Nous avons également réfléchir à l'utilité du mécanisme de randomisation, ce qui représente la proximité entre les réponses aléatoires et les vraies, en moyenne. Nous montrons que la notion de Differential Privacy implique une borne serrée sur l'utilité, et nous proposons une méthode qui, sous certaines conditions, construit un mécanisme de randomisation optimale. Déménagent de l'accent mis sur des approches quantitatives, nous abordons le problème de l'utilisation des équivalences des processus pour caractériser des propriétés de protection d'information. Dans la littérature, certains travaux ont utilisé cette approche, fondée sur le principe selon lequel un protocole P avec une variable x satisfait de ces biens si et seulement si, pour chaque paire de secrets s1 et s2, P [s1 / x] est équivalent à P [s2 / x]. Nous montrons que, en présence de non-déterminisme, le principe ci-dessus repose sur l'hypothèse que le scheduler "travaille pour le bénéfice du protocole", et ce n'est généralement pas une hypothèse valable. Parmi des équivalences non-secoures, en ce sens, il y a l'équivalence des traces complètes et la bisimulation. Nous présentons un formalisme dans lequel on peut spécifier schedulers valides et, en conséquence, des versions sécurité des équivalences sur dessus. Nous montrons que notre version de bisimulation est toujours une congruence. Enfin, nous montrons que nos équivalences de sécurité peuvent être utilisées pour établir les propriétés de protection d'information.

Previous studies on the relation between language and social cognition have shown that children’s mastery of embedded sentential complements plays a causal role for the development of a Theory of Mind (ToM). Children start to succeed on complementation tasks in which they are required to report the content of an embedded clause in the second half of the fourth year. Traditional ToM tasks test the child’s ability to predict that a person who is holding a false belief (FB) about a situation will act "falsely". In these task, children do not represent FBs until the age of 4 years. According the linguistic determinism hypothesis, only the unique syntax of complement sentences provides the format for representing FBs. However, experiments measuring children’s looking behavior instead of their explicit predictions provided evidence that already 2-year olds possess an implicit ToM. This dissertation examined the question of whether there is an interrelation also between implicit ToM and the comprehension of complement sentences in typically developing German preschoolers. Two studies were conducted. In a correlational study (Study 1 ), 3-year-old children’s performance on a traditional (explicit) FB task, on an implicit FB task and on language tasks measuring children’s comprehension of tensed sentential complements were collected and tested for their interdependence. Eye-tracking methodology was used to assess implicit ToM by measuring participants’ spontaneous anticipatory eye movements while they were watching FB movies. Two central findings emerged. First, predictive looking (implicit ToM) was not correlated with complement mastery, although both measures were associated with explicit FB task performance. This pattern of results suggests that explicit, but not implicit ToM is language dependent. Second, as a group, 3-year-olds did not display implicit FB understanding. That is, previous findings on a precocious reasoning ability could not be replicated. This indicates that the characteristics of predictive looking tasks play a role for the elicitation of implicit FB understanding as the current task was completely nonverbal and as complex as traditional FB tasks. Study 2 took a methodological approach by investigating whether children display an earlier comprehension of sentential complements when using the same means of measurement as used in experimental tasks tapping implicit ToM, namely anticipatory looking. Two experiments were conducted. 3-year-olds were confronted either with a complement sentence expressing the protagonist’s FB (Exp. 1) or with a complex sentence expressing the protagonist’s belief without giving any information about the truth/ falsity of the belief (Exp. 2). Afterwards, their expectations about the protagonist’s future behavior were measured. Overall, implicit measures reveal no considerably earlier understanding of sentential complementation. Whereas 3-year-olds did not display a comprehension of complex sentences if these embedded a false proposition, children from 3;9 years on were proficient in processing complement sentences if the truth value of the embedded proposition could not be evaluated. This pattern of results suggests that (1) the linguistic expression of a person’s FB does not elicit implicit FB understanding and that (2) the assessment of the purely syntactic understanding of complement sentences is affected by competing reality information. In conclusion, this dissertation found no evidence that the implicit ToM is related to the comprehension of sentential complementation. The findings suggest that implicit ToM might be based on nonlinguistic processes. Results are discussed in the light of recently proposed dual-process models that assume two cognitive mechanisms that account for different levels of ToM task performance. / Zahlreiche Studien legen nahe, dass der Erwerb finiter Komplementsatzstrukturen eine Voraussetzung für die Entwicklung einer Theory of Mind (ToM) ist. Kinder beginnen in circa der zweiten Hälfte ihres 4. Lebensjahres Komplementsatzverständnisaufgaben zu lösen, die eine Wiedergabe des Komplementsatzes erfordern. Die ToM wird klassischerweise als erworben bezeichnet, wenn ein Kind korrekt vorhersagen kann, dass eine Person, die eine falsche Überzeugung hat, entsprechend "falsch" handeln wird. Es ist bekannt, dass sich diese Fähigkeit bei Kindern mit circa 4 Jahren entwickelt. Gemäß der Hypothese des linguistischen Determinismus liefert die syntaktische Komplexität von Komplementsatzstrukturen das Format, um falsche Überzeugungen mental zu repräsentieren. In ToM Aufgaben, die erfassen, wo Kinder eine zukünfige Handlung einer fehlinformierten Person antizipieren, konnte allerdings bereits schon bei 2-Jährigen das Verstehen falscher Überzeugungen nachgewiesen werden. Diese frühe Fähigkeit wird auch implizite ToM genannt, da diese Art der Aufgabe keine bewusste Entscheidung verlangt. Die vorliegende Dissertation untersucht erstmalig im Deutschen, ob der Zusammenhang zwischen dem Verstehen von Komplementsatzstrukturen und ToM auch für diese implizite Fähigkeit gilt. Zwei Studien wurden durchgeführt. In Studie 1 wurden die Leistungen von 3-Jährigen in einer klassischen (expliziten) ToM Aufgabe, einer impliziten ToM Aufgabe und in Komplementsatzverständnisaufgaben erhoben und auf korrelative Zusammenhänge hin getestet. Dabei wurde mittels eines Eye-Trackers das antizipative Blickverhalten gemessen und somit auf das Vorhandensein einer impliziten ToM geschlossen. Die Leistungen in den Sprachaufgaben korrelierten nicht mit den Blickdaten, obwohl beide Maße mit den Leistungen in der expliziten ToM Aufgabe in Beziehung standen. Unerwarteterweise konnte jedoch generell kein implizites Verstehen falscher Überzeugungen bei 3-jährigen nachgewiesen werden. Da die implizite ToM Aufgabe nichtsprachlich war, wird der Einfluss von Aufgabeneigenschaften auf die Elizitierung von impliziter ToM diskutiert. Studie 2 untersuchte, ob 3-Jährige ein früheres, implizites Verstehen von Komplementsatzstrukturen in Aufgaben zeigen, in denen antizipatorische Blicke anstelle von expliziten Antworten gemessen werden und damit das gleiche Maß verwendet wird wie in impliziten ToM Aufgaben. Zwei Experimente wurden durchgeführt. Der präsentierte Komplementsatz drückte entweder eine falsche Überzeugung des Protagonisten aus (Exp. 1) oder eine Überzeugung, deren Wahrheitsgehalt nicht bestimmt wurde (Exp. 2). Während bei 3-Jährigen kein Verstehen von Komplementsatzstrukturen, die eine falsche Proposition enthielten, nachgewiesen werden konnte, zeigten Kinder ab einem Alter von 3;9 Jahren, dass sie den komplexen Satz verarbeiten, wenn dieser keine falsche Proposition beinhaltet. Dieses Ergebnismuster spricht dafür, dass (1) der sprachliche Ausdruck einer falschen Überzeugung die implizite ToM nicht elizitieren kann und dass (2) das Erfassen des rein syntaktischen Verstehens durch zusätzliche Realitätsinformation beeinträchtigt wird. Zusammenfassend konnte in der vorliegenden Arbeit kein Hinweis dafür gefunden werden, dass die implizite ToM in gleicher Weise wie die explizite ToM mit dem Verstehen von Komplementsatzstrukturen einhergeht. Die Ergebnisse legen nahe, dass vielmehr nonlinguistische Faktoren bei der Entwicklung einer impliziten ToM eine Rolle spielen könnten. Die Resultate werden mit Blick auf aktuelle Zwei-Prozess-Modelle diskutiert.

Abstract: Utsagor gällande framtida utfall betecknas som framtidsstudier. Den mest vidsprida och accepterade av alla framtidsstudier är den så kallade demografiska prognosen. Föreliggande uppsats har som syfte besvara tre frågeställningar genom att analysera prognoser utifrån ett kommunalt perspektiv. Frågeställningarna är följande: Vilken sammansättning, ställning och syfte har nutida befolkningsprognoser inom den Svenska kommunala verksamheten? Hur kommer den geografiska fördelningen av människor utvecklas under det kommande decenniet, och vilka trender ligger bakom denna utveckling? Kan moderna demografiska prognoser anses utgöra ett tillförlitligt planeringsunderlag för den nutida kommunala verksamheten ? Det är primärt den deskriptiva metoden som tillämpas i uppsatsen. Denna kompletteras dock stundtals av komparativa analyser. Resultaten visar att kommunala demografiska prognoser är i princip mindre komplexa versioner av SCB:s nationella prognos. Då hela 247 av 290 kommuner i Sverige tillämpar prognoser som underlag för sin framtida planering, betraktas dess ställning som tämligen god. Kommunala prognosers syfte är att vara ett realistiskt underlag vid beslutsfattandet över distributionen av kommunens resurser. Enligt insamlat material förutspås de redan befolkningsmässigt stora kommuner och deras agglomerationer att fortsätta växa. Detta indikerar en vidare urholkning av glesbygden, där främst yngre flyttar mot större städer för studier och arbete och lämnar bakom sig medelålders och äldre. Den sociala faktorn blir vid en viss ålder överordnad rent ekonomiska vinster, vilket förklarar varför äldre och medelålders väljer att stanna kvar i sina hemorter i högre utsträckning än yngre människor. Den största dragningskraften vad gäller större kommuner är deras befolkningsmässiga storlek och diversifierade dynamiska arbetsmarknader, medan mindre kommuners dragningskraft baseras primärt på jämförelsevis låga boendekostnader. Kommunala prognoser tillförlitlighet determineras utifrån jämförelser mellan tillgängliga kommunala prognoser och deras regionala och nationella motsvarigheter. Även om den förutspådda befolkningsutvecklingen är något högre bland tillgängliga kommunala prognoser än vad som tolkas från nationellt och regionalt håll, så kan kommunala prognoser ändå anses generellt tillförlitliga då dess utfall befinner sig inom rimlighetens gränser.

Human upright posture exhibits an everlasting oscillatory behavior of complex nature, called as human postural sway. Variations in the position of the Center-of-Pressure (CoP) were used to describe the human postural sway. In this study / CoP data, which has experimentally been collected from 28 different subjects (14 males and 14 females with their ages ranging from 6 to 84), who were divided into 4 groups according to their ages has been analyzed. The data collection from each of the subjects was performed in 5 successive trials, each of which has lasted for 180-seconds long. Linear analysis methods such as the variance/standard deviation, Fast Fouri&eacute / r Transformation, and Power Spectral Density estimates were applied to the detrended CoP signal of human postural sway. Also the Run test and Ensemble averages methods were used to search for stationarity and ergodicity of the CoP signal respectively. Furthermore, in order to reveal the nonlinear characteristics of the human postural sway, its dynamics were reconstructed in m-dimensional state space from the CoPx signals. Then, the correlation dimension (D2) estimates from the embedded dynamics were calculated. Additionally, the statistical and dynamical measures computed were checked against any significant changes, which may occur during aging. The results of the study suggested that human postural sway is a stationary process when 180-second long biped quiet stance data is considered. In addition, it exhibits variable dynamical structure complex in nature (112 deterministic chaos versus 28 stochastic time series of human postural sway) for five successive trials of 28 different subjects. Moreover, we found that groups were significantly different in the correlation dimension (D2) measure (p&amp / #8804 / 0.0003). Finally, the behavior of the experimental CoPx signals was checked against two types of linear processes by using surrogate data method. The shuffled CoPx signals (Surrogate I) suggested that temporal order of CoPx is important / however, phase-randomization (Surrogate II) did not change the behavioral characteristics of the CoPx signal.

<p>Abstract: Utsagor gällande framtida utfall betecknas som framtidsstudier. Den mest vidsprida och accepterade av alla framtidsstudier är den så kallade demografiska prognosen. Föreliggande uppsats har som syfte besvara tre frågeställningar genom att analysera prognoser utifrån ett kommunalt perspektiv. Frågeställningarna är följande: Vilken sammansättning, ställning och syfte har nutida befolkningsprognoser inom den Svenska kommunala verksamheten? Hur kommer den geografiska fördelningen av människor utvecklas under det kommande decenniet, och vilka trender ligger bakom denna utveckling? Kan moderna demografiska prognoser anses utgöra ett tillförlitligt planeringsunderlag för den nutida kommunala verksamheten ? Det är primärt den deskriptiva metoden som tillämpas i uppsatsen. Denna kompletteras dock stundtals av komparativa analyser.</p><p>Resultaten visar att kommunala demografiska prognoser är i princip mindre komplexa versioner av SCB:s nationella prognos. Då hela 247 av 290 kommuner i Sverige tillämpar prognoser som underlag för sin framtida planering, betraktas dess ställning som tämligen god. Kommunala prognosers syfte är att vara ett realistiskt underlag vid beslutsfattandet över distributionen av kommunens resurser. Enligt insamlat material förutspås de redan befolkningsmässigt stora kommuner och deras agglomerationer att fortsätta växa. Detta indikerar en vidare urholkning av glesbygden, där främst yngre flyttar mot större städer för studier och arbete och lämnar bakom sig medelålders och äldre. Den sociala faktorn blir vid en viss ålder överordnad rent ekonomiska vinster, vilket förklarar varför äldre och medelålders väljer att stanna kvar i sina hemorter i högre utsträckning än yngre människor. Den största dragningskraften vad gäller större kommuner är deras befolkningsmässiga storlek och diversifierade dynamiska arbetsmarknader, medan mindre kommuners dragningskraft baseras primärt på jämförelsevis låga boendekostnader. Kommunala prognoser tillförlitlighet determineras utifrån jämförelser mellan tillgängliga kommunala prognoser och deras regionala och nationella motsvarigheter. Även om den förutspådda befolkningsutvecklingen är något högre bland tillgängliga kommunala prognoser än vad som tolkas från nationellt och regionalt håll, så kan kommunala prognoser ändå anses generellt tillförlitliga då dess utfall befinner sig inom rimlighetens gränser.</p>

This thesis examines the moral philosophical commitments that Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche advance in their respective oppositions to utilitarianism. Though not always under that title, all three reject the claim that promoting happiness is the ultimate end that we pursue, or ought to pursue, through moral principles and values. Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche see this rejection reflected in human nature itself. Each develops a distinctive conception of 'higher self,' or of higher purposes already belonging, in some sense, to each of us, in accordance with which we ought to shape our character. Self-formation, not the mere pursuit of happiness (whether our own or that of others), is thus our true moral project. I focus on each philosopher's account of agency and motivation as the locus in which this view of morality is developed, highlighting the differences that emerge from the details of their respective accounts. This thesis shows that a tight relation between cognition and motive feeling is central, though in different ways, for Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, to the motivational structure of those actions through which we develop moral character. According to Kant, recognition of being bound by the moral law (our 'practical cognition' of freedom) is indissolubly linked to the feeling of respect for it, which in turn is explicable only through such recognition. For Schopenhauer, the 'intuitive cognition' that our existence as distinct individuals is illusory is the feeling of compassion. Nietzsche radically expands this point, arguing that, in every act of will, the motive feeling and guiding cognition are uniquely linked. Only a superficial grasp of human motivation supports the idea that pleasure and pain are the common motive forces underlying all our actions. The inner conflict in human nature, the creative tension in self-formation, is not, for Nietzsche, that between a uniquely moral form of motivation and a 'lower' instrumental pursuit of pleasure. Rather, this inner tension, expressed most strikingly and distressingly in extreme ascetic and guilt-ridden strands of Christian morality, is the product of a complex historical conflict between two different modes of behavioural selection – our evolutionary development and the processes of socialization.

Modern applications of XML use automata operating on unranked trees. A common definition of tree automata operating on unranked trees uses a set of vertical states that define the bottom-up computation, and the transitions on vertical states are determined by so called horizontal languages recognized by finite automata on strings. The bottom-up computation of an unranked tree automaton may be either deterministic or nondeterministic, and further variants arise depending on whether the horizontal string languages defining the transitions are represented by DFAs or NFAs. There is also an alternative syntactic definition of determinism introduced by Cristau et al. It is known that a deterministic tree automaton with the smallest total number of states does not need to be unique nor have the smallest possible number of vertical states. We consider the question by how much we can reduce the total number of states by introducing additional vertical states. We give an upper bound for the state trade-off for deterministic tree automata where the horizontal languages are defined by DFAs, and a lower bound construction that, for variable sized alphabets, is close to the upper bound. We establish upper and lower bounds for the state complexity of conversions between different types of deterministic and nondeterministic unranked tree automata. The bounds are, usually, tight for the numbers of vertical states. Because a minimal deterministic unranked tree automaton need not be unique, establishing lower bounds for the number of horizontal states, that is, the combined size of DFAs used to define the horizontal languages, is challenging. Based on existing lower bound results for unambiguous finite automata we develop a lower bound criterion for the number of horizontal states. We consider the state complexity of operations on regular unranked tree languages. The concatenation of trees can be defined either as a sequential or a parallel operation. Furthermore, there are two essentially different ways to iterate sequential concatenation. We establish tight state complexity bounds for concatenation-like operations. In particular, for sequential concatenation and bottom-up iterated concatenation the bounds differ by an order of magnitude from the corresponding state complexity bounds for regular string languages. / Thesis (Ph.D, Computing) -- Queen's University, 2012-01-04 14:48:02.916

This thesis examines the moral philosophical commitments that Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche advance in their respective oppositions to utilitarianism. Though not always under that title, all three reject the claim that promoting happiness is the ultimate end that we pursue, or ought to pursue, through moral principles and values. Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche see this rejection reflected in human nature itself. Each develops a distinctive conception of 'higher self,' or of higher purposes already belonging, in some sense, to each of us, in accordance with which we ought to shape our character. Self-formation, not the mere pursuit of happiness (whether our own or that of others), is thus our true moral project. I focus on each philosopher's account of agency and motivation as the locus in which this view of morality is developed, highlighting the differences that emerge from the details of their respective accounts. This thesis shows that a tight relation between cognition and motive feeling is central, though in different ways, for Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, to the motivational structure of those actions through which we develop moral character. According to Kant, recognition of being bound by the moral law (our 'practical cognition' of freedom) is indissolubly linked to the feeling of respect for it, which in turn is explicable only through such recognition. For Schopenhauer, the 'intuitive cognition' that our existence as distinct individuals is illusory is the feeling of compassion. Nietzsche radically expands this point, arguing that, in every act of will, the motive feeling and guiding cognition are uniquely linked. Only a superficial grasp of human motivation supports the idea that pleasure and pain are the common motive forces underlying all our actions. The inner conflict in human nature, the creative tension in self-formation, is not, for Nietzsche, that between a uniquely moral form of motivation and a 'lower' instrumental pursuit of pleasure. Rather, this inner tension, expressed most strikingly and distressingly in extreme ascetic and guilt-ridden strands of Christian morality, is the product of a complex historical conflict between two different modes of behavioural selection – our evolutionary development and the processes of socialization.