Network Direct Selling Organisations (NDSOs) exist in more than 50 countries and have more than 74 million members. The most recent statistical information reveals that the vast majority of members do not earn significant income. Criticism of these organisations revolves around the ethicality of consumption, the commercialisation of personal relationships, and the exploitation of unrealistic expectations. This study aims to explore how communication creates networks that sustain an industry of this kind despite the improbability of its existence. The study commences with a description of NDSOs from historical, operational, tactical, and strategic perspectives. Given the broader context created by the global presence of this industry, cybernetics has been selected as a meta-theoretical perspective for the study of communication. The more recent development of second-order cybernetics and social autopoiesis are introduced to communication theory as a field. Niklas Luhmann‟s new social theory of communication is assessed and applied in relation to existing communication theory. New conceptual models are developed to explore communication as the unity of the synthesis of information, utterance, understanding, and expectations as selections that occur both consciously and unconsciously, intentionally and unintentionally. These models indicate the multiplexity of individual and social operationally closed, yet informationally open systems, and they are used here to provide a systemic and coherent alternative to orthodox communication approaches to the study of organisations. The study adopts a constructivist epistemological stance and propounds throughout the necessity of further interdisciplinary collaboration. The study concludes that individuals are composite unities of self-creating systems, and they co-create social systems by self-creating and co-creating meaning. Meaning is described as the continuous virtualisation and actualisation of potentialities that in turn coordinate individual and social systems‟ actions. A communication process flow model is created to provide a theoretical explanation for the existence of NDSOs as self-creating systems. The study aims to show that communication has arguably become the most pervasive discipline as a result of the globally interactive era. It is shown that second-order cybernetics and social autopoiesis raise several further questions to be explored within communication theory as a field. / Communication, first-order cybernetics, second-order cybernetics, Complexity and complex systems, autopoiesis, self-reference, recursivity, operational closure, system boundaries, Network Direct Selling Organisations / Communication / D. Litt. et Phil. (Communication)

Studien undersöker användningen av Goyas etsning När förnuftet sover kommer monstren och Fuselis oljemålning Nattmaran som förekommer i slasherfilmen Terror på Elm Street (2010). Konstverken är placerade i en scen där konstverken bland annat får en självrefererande roll eftersom det som sker i konstverken även sker i filmen. Syftet med studien är att undersöka vad konstverken fyller för funktion i filmen och att undersöka om det finns stilistiska och tematiska likheter mellan konstverken och filmen trots att det skiljer ungefär 200 år mellan dem. De båda konstverken analyseras semiotiskt och filmen analyseras främst utifrån studiens teoretiska perspektiv: intermedialitet, transmediering och intertextualitet.   Resultatet visar att slasherfilmer och skräckfilmer är väldigt flitiga med användandet av intertextuella referenser och självrefererande uttryck men att det är svårt att veta exakt vad konstverken har för betydelse. Tidigare forskning visar att tidig skräckfilm inspirerades av gotiska romaner och romantiska konstverk vilka transmedierades till filmmediet när det var tekniskt möjligt. Mellan konstverken och filmen går det att hitta flera stilmässiga och tematiska likheter som är typiska för det som började framhävas under romantiken. Terror på Elm Street (2010) bär på flera postmoderna drag, bland annat eftersom filmen kombinerar uttryck från det förflutna och berör gränsen för vad som ses som fin- respektive populärkultur. / This study examines Goya’s etching The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters and Fuseli’s The Nightmare and how they are used in the slasher movie A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010). The purpose of this study is to explore the artworks and their role within the movie and examine if it is possible to distinguish stylistic and thematic similarities between the works despite being separated by approximately 200 years. The artworks are analyzed according to a semiotic method, while the movie is analyzed mainly using the study’s theoretical aspects: intermediality, transmediality and intertextuality. The result shows that intertextual references and self-referential expressions are frequently used in slasher movies. However, the specific role which these artworks play in the movie is often hard to decipher. There are several similarities between the artworks and the movie and previous studies shows that early horror movies were influenced by gothic novels and romantic paintings which were transmediated to fit the film medium. The art works used in A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) have the same motifs as part of the film’s story and are also part of a postmodern trend of mixing between so called high culture and popular culture.

La thèse se propose d’étudier différentes formes de la représentation du passé dans le roman contemporain français. Si la recherche a pu constater, depuis un certain temps déjà, un véritable « retour de l’Histoire » sur la scène littéraire actuelle, force est de constater que chez certains auteurs, ce « retour » s’accompagne d’une méfiance profonde à l’égard de la connaissance de l’Histoire et des formes (culturelles, littéraires) de sa mise en récit. Ainsi Philippe Forest, dans Le Siècle des nuages (2010), raconte-t-il l’histoire de son père tout en se posant la question de savoir comment on peut écrire cette histoire qui constamment se dérobe. Il en sort un roman historique paradoxal et foncièrement autoréférentiel qui se construit et se déconstruit sous les yeux du lecteur. De façon comparable, Jean Rouaud, dans L’Imitation du bonheur (2006), invite son lecteur dans « l’atelier » de l’écrivain afin d’exhiber les sources et les ressources de son travail. Il ne se sert ainsi des techniques de l’illusion réaliste que pour mieux les parodier par la suite. Dans Waltenberg (2005) d’Hédi Kaddour, en revanche, la critique du récit historique se fait à travers la fragmentation de l’intrigue, la multiplication des temps et des lieux ainsi que par l’abandon de la linéarité. Aussi l’auteur nous présente-t-il une histoire éclatée qui se soustrait aux catégories d’unité et de cohérence. Bien que les stratégies de représentation dans ces trois romans soient diverses, elles renvoient pourtant à un concept commun que je propose ici d’appeler le récit historique critique.Dans la partie principale de mon travail, il s’agit d’analyser les trois romans mentionnés ci-dessus en tenant compte, notamment, des outils méthodologiques élaborés par la narratologie (D. Cohn, A. Nünning, W. Wolf) et par la théorie de l’histoire (H. White, P. Ricœur, R. Kosel-leck). Cette partie principale est précédée d’une partie plus « théorique » subdivisée en trois axes de recherche : L’approche systématisante essaie de condenser certaines des caractéristiques les plus importantes du récit historique critique dans une vue d’ensemble, élargissant par ailleurs le propos sur d’autres textes littéraires (contemporains). L’approche historicisante se propose de tisser un lien entre les romans analysés dans la partie principale de la thèse et l’œuvre de Claude Simon, considérée ici comme une sorte de paradigme esthétique pour une nouvelle écriture de l’histoire. L’approche comparative, enfin, tourne le regard vers les historiens professionnels (Ginzburg, Jablonka, Boucheron) qui, à l’instar des romanciers, ont exploré, ces derniers temps, de nouvelles formes de mise en récit du passé. Si ces nouvelles formes se rapprochent du récit littéraire par l’usage qu’elles font de la fiction, elles restent néanmoins sceptiques sur la possibilité même de représenter le passé, devenant de la sorte comme un équivalent en histoire du récit historique critique littéraire. / This PhD thesis offers a study of different forms of representations of the past in the French contemporary novel. Since several years, literary critics agree that there has been something like a “return to history” on the actual literary scene. But we also have to state that some con-temporary authors combine this “return” with a profound suspicion against the knowing of history and the (cultural or literary) forms of telling it. In his Le Siècle des nuages (2010), Philippe Forest tells the story of his father while at the same time questioning himself about how to represent a story which seems to withdraw itself constantly. The result is somewhat paradoxical and may be described as a self-referential historical novel that constructs and deconstructs itself in front of the reader’s eyes. In a similar way, Jean Rouaud’s L’Imitation du bonheur (2006) invites its reader in the artist’s workshop in order to reveal the sources and the resources of the story. Exploiting the techniques of realistic illusion, Rouaud is in fact parodying them. Waltenberg (2005) by Hédi Kaddour acts differently: in this novel, historical narration is undermined by a broken storyline, by a pluralization of times and spaces and by the abandoning of the chronological order. Thus the author confronts us with a history “in pieces” that doesn’t obey the principles of unity and coherence anymore. Even if the strategies of historical representation are quite different in these three novels, they are all based on a common concept which I suggest to call “critical historical narration”.The main part of my work consists of the analysis of the three novels mentioned above, an analysis which is mostly based on methods provided by narratology (D. Cohn, A. Nünning, W. Wolf) or theory of history (H. White, P. Ricœur, R. Koselleck). This main part is preceded by a more general part that is subdivided into three theoretical approaches: the systematizing approach tries to reunite some of the most important features of critical historical narration in a synopsis and thereby takes also account of other (contemporary) literary texts. The historical approach connects the novels analysed in the main part of this thesis to the work of Claude Simon, which will be considered here as an esthetical paradigm for a new kind of historical narration. Finally, the comparative approach focuses on professional historians (Ginzburg, Ja-blonka, Boucheron) who have been exploring new strategies of historical writing in the same way that novelists have done. Indeed, if these new strategies converge with those in literary writing because of the use they make of fiction, they are nevertheless included in a more general reflection on the possibilities of representing the past. Historiography thus may provide something like an equivalent to critical historical narration in literature.

The main idea of this thesis is to discuss the position of religion in contem-portary society. In system language, that is the relationship between contem-portary religious system and its envirnoment.

While an extensive body of research exploring professional discourse exists, research investigating off-task talk within workplaces has been relatively side-lined. To better understand the possible functions of personal interstices layered between institutional goal-oriented talk, this study examines instances of self-disclosure that emerged from 34 hours of authentic interactions recorded at three Canadian workplaces. Using conversation analysis, 87 self-reference, self-disclosure declaratives were identified. Of those, 21 occurred within reciprocal sequences between two participants. Similar to a second story telling found in ordinary conversation (Sacks, 1992a), the second speaker’s self-disclosure reflects the first speaker’s, both in content and form, and is often an upgraded version of the initial disclosure. This pattern and in-meeting placement suggest that these types of personal interstices may be a mechanism for displaying co-worker empathetic affiliation. Additionally, hierarchical role relations and institution goals may be temporarily suspended or back-grounded during these sequences.

While an extensive body of research exploring professional discourse exists, research investigating off-task talk within workplaces has been relatively side-lined. To better understand the possible functions of personal interstices layered between institutional goal-oriented talk, this study examines instances of self-disclosure that emerged from 34 hours of authentic interactions recorded at three Canadian workplaces. Using conversation analysis, 87 self-reference, self-disclosure declaratives were identified. Of those, 21 occurred within reciprocal sequences between two participants. Similar to a second story telling found in ordinary conversation (Sacks, 1992a), the second speaker’s self-disclosure reflects the first speaker’s, both in content and form, and is often an upgraded version of the initial disclosure. This pattern and in-meeting placement suggest that these types of personal interstices may be a mechanism for displaying co-worker empathetic affiliation. Additionally, hierarchical role relations and institution goals may be temporarily suspended or back-grounded during these sequences.

Optically-transparent solids have a significant role in many emerging topics of fundamental and applied research, in areas related to Applied Optics and Photonics. In the functional devices based on them, the presence of ‘time-varying temperature fields’ critically limit their achievable performance, when used particularly for high power laser-related tasks such as light-generation, light-amplification, nonlinear-harmonic conversion etc. For optimization of these devices, accurate knowledge of the material thermal parameters is essential. Many optical and non-optical methods are currently in use, for the reliable estimation of the thermal parameters. The thermal diffusivity is a key parameter for dealing with ‘transient heat transport’ related problems. Although its importance in practical design for thermal management is well understood, its physical meaning however continues to be esoteric. The present effort concerns with a few investigations on the “Optical interrogation of ‘transient thermal conduction’ in dielectric solids”. In dielectric solids, the current understanding is that the conductive heat transport occurs only through phonons relevant to microscopic lattice vibrations. Introducing for the first time, a virtual linear translator motion as the basis for heat conduction in dielectric materials, the present investigation discusses an alternative physical mechanism and a new analytical model for the transient heat conduction in dielectric solids. The model brings into limelight a ‘new law of motion’ and a ‘new quantity’ which can be defined at every point in the material, through which time-varying heat flows resulting in time-varying temperature. Physically, this quantity is a measure for the linear translatory motion resulting from transient heat conduction. For step-temperature excitation it bears a simple algebraic relation to the thermal diffusivity of the material. This relationship helps to define the thermal diffusivity of a dielectric solid as the “translatory motion speed” measured at unit distance from the heat source. A novel two-beam interferometric technique is proposed and corroborated the proposed concept with significant advantages. Two new approaches are introduced to estimate thermal diffusivity of optically transparent dielectric solid; first of them involves measurement of the position dependent velocity of isothermal surface and second one depend on the measurement of position dependent instantaneous velocity of normalized moving intensity points. A ‘new mechanism’ is proposed and demonstrated to visualize, monitor and interrogate optically, the ‘linear translatory motion’ resulting from the transient heat flow due to step- temperature excitation. Two new approaches are introduced, first one is ‘mark’ and ‘track’ approach, it involves a new interaction between sample supporting unsteady heat flow with its ambient and produces optical mark. Thermal diffusivity is estimated by tracking the optical mark. Second one involves measurement of instantaneous velocity of optical mark for different step-temperature at a fixed location to estimate thermal diffusivity. A new inverse method is proposed to estimate thermal diffusivity and thermal conductivity from the volumetric specific heat capacity alone through thought experiment. A new method is proposed to predict volumetric specific heat capacity more accurately from thermal diffusivity.

Network Direct Selling Organisations (NDSOs) exist in more than 50 countries and have more than 74 million members. The most recent statistical information reveals that the vast majority of members do not earn significant income. Criticism of these organisations revolves around the ethicality of consumption, the commercialisation of personal relationships, and the exploitation of unrealistic expectations. This study aims to explore how communication creates networks that sustain an industry of this kind despite the improbability of its existence. The study commences with a description of NDSOs from historical, operational, tactical, and strategic perspectives. Given the broader context created by the global presence of this industry, cybernetics has been selected as a meta-theoretical perspective for the study of communication. The more recent development of second-order cybernetics and social autopoiesis are introduced to communication theory as a field. Niklas Luhmann‟s new social theory of communication is assessed and applied in relation to existing communication theory. New conceptual models are developed to explore communication as the unity of the synthesis of information, utterance, understanding, and expectations as selections that occur both consciously and unconsciously, intentionally and unintentionally. These models indicate the multiplexity of individual and social operationally closed, yet informationally open systems, and they are used here to provide a systemic and coherent alternative to orthodox communication approaches to the study of organisations. The study adopts a constructivist epistemological stance and propounds throughout the necessity of further interdisciplinary collaboration. The study concludes that individuals are composite unities of self-creating systems, and they co-create social systems by self-creating and co-creating meaning. Meaning is described as the continuous virtualisation and actualisation of potentialities that in turn coordinate individual and social systems‟ actions. A communication process flow model is created to provide a theoretical explanation for the existence of NDSOs as self-creating systems. The study aims to show that communication has arguably become the most pervasive discipline as a result of the globally interactive era. It is shown that second-order cybernetics and social autopoiesis raise several further questions to be explored within communication theory as a field. / Communication, first-order cybernetics, second-order cybernetics, Complexity and complex systems, autopoiesis, self-reference, recursivity, operational closure, system boundaries, Network Direct Selling Organisations / Communication / D. Litt. et Phil. (Communication)

We study the properties of a number of algorithms proposed to explore the computational space generated by a very simple and general idea: the notion of a mathematical definition and a number of suggested formal interpretations ofthis idea. Theories of partial inductive definitions (PID) constitute a class of logics based on the notion of an inductive definition. Formal systems based on this notion can be used to generalize Horn-logic and naturally allow and suggest extensions which differ in interesting ways from generalizations based on first order predicate calculus. E.g. the notion of completion generated by a calculus of PID and the resulting notion of negation is completely natural and does not require externally motivated procedures such as "negation as failure". For this reason, computational issues arising in these calculi deserve closer inspection. This work discuss a number of finitary theories of PID and analyzethe algorithmic and semantical issues that arise in each of them. There has been significant work on implementing logic programming languages in this setting and we briefly present the programming language and knowledge modelling tool GCLA II in which many of the computational prob-lems discussed arise naturally in practice. / <p>Also published as SICS Dissertation no. SICS-D-19</p>

Cette thèse étudie les représentations du passé par les marques et leur effet sur les consommateurs dans le cadre théorique de la distance temporelle. Que se passe-t-il lorsqu’une marque indique sa date de fondation sur un packaging, présente son histoire en page d’accueil du site internet ou fait de son fondateur le personnage central de ses créations publicitaires ? L’objectif de cette thèse est de qualifier ce phénomène, de mieux le comprendre et d’en mesurer les effets cognitifs et affectifs sur les consommateurs. La première partie de la thèse situe ce phénomène par rapport aux recherches sur le rôle du temps en marketing, et plus particulièrement à celles liées au passé comme le marketing rétrospectif, la nostalgie, l’authenticité et la consommation du passé. La seconde partie présente deux études qualitatives et cinq études quantitatives (chapitres 4 à 6) dont les résultats permettent de 1) proposer une nouvelle échelle pour mesurer la perception du patrimoine de marque, 2) démontrer que la mobilisation du patrimoine de marque augmente la distance temporelle entre le consommateur et la marque, 3) montrer que le patrimoine de marque est associé à des bénéfices cognitifs même si la causalité n’est pas vérifiée, et 4) prouver que le patrimoine de marque a un effet sur l’attachement à la marque, uniquement si les consommateurs en sont familiers. Ces résultats contribuent à la recherche sur la gestion de la temporalité de la marque, aux travaux sur le concept de patrimoine de marque, sur les effets cognitifs et affectifs des représentations du passé par les marques, et sur les effets de la distance temporelle dans le passé / This doctoral thesis explores brands’ representations of the past and their effect on consumers in the theoretical framework of temporal distance. What happens when a brand indicates its founding date on a packaging ? Or puts forward its history on its website ? Or uses its founder as the central character in an advertising campaign ? This thesis aims to qualify this phenomenon, to better understand it, and to measure its cognitive and affective effects on consumers. The first part of the dissertation situates this phenomenon with regards to existing research on the role of time in marketing, and most particularly, to the research relating to the past such as retrospective branding, nostalgia, authenticity and the commodification of the past. The second part details two qualitative and five quantitative empirical studies whose results : 1) suggested a new scale to measure the perception of brand heritage, 2) demonstrated that brand heritage increases temporal distance between the brand and its consumers, 3) showed that brand heritage is associated with cognitive benefits although causality is not assessed, and 4) proved the effect of brand heritage on brand attachment for familiar brands. Those results contribute to the research on temporality in brand management, on the concept of brand heritage and its measurement, on the cognitive and affective consequences of brands’ representations of the past, and on the temporal distance on the past