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This thesis is the outcome of an investigation to authenticate and verify a work titled UaI-Ju''lu' al-ManthurnN~I!Jat Wulat al-Umur' (Pearls ofAdvice to Rulers) written by Nur-al-Din al-Samhuctr, also known as the Faqih (jurist) and historian of Madina. He lived in the' 9th Hijri century during the closing stages of the Mamluk era (844-911 AH). In his work, al-Samhudf presented a series of reminders and admonitions focused on governance, and woven in an attractive admonitory style. At the same time, he mentioned a number of problems that were prevalent in his time, analysing these and presenting the ShaIf'ah perspective on them from his own viewpoint. The work may be classified in the genre or body of knowledge dedicated to the admonition of kings and rulers, which is part of al-Siyasah al-Shar'iyyah (Islamic politics). The work may also be considered an example and model of how to tender n~I!Jah (advice) to kings and rulers, whereby it contained meanings and topics of interest to the ruler in his time, as well as other meanings of use to every ruler and king at any time.' This research involved a substantial academic examination of the science of Islamic . politics which includes through providing a critical edition to the manuscript in question. It also attempts to analyse the content of the manuscript and prov~des a detailed introduction to manuscript and its author. In doing so, the research also·, discussed in detail the Mamluk period, which had signifcant impact on the content of the manuscript. In sum, the present research provides a critical evaluation of a valued manuscript.

This thesis describes the design, implementation and application of an integrated and fully automated system for interpreting whole-body range data. The system is shown to be capable of generating complete surface models of human bodies, and robustly extracting anatomical features for anthropometry, with minimal intrusion on the subject. The ability to automate this process has enormous potential for personalised digital models in medicine, ergonomics, design and manufacture and for populating virtual environments. The techniques developed within this thesis now form the basis of a commercial product. However, the technical difficulties are considerable. Human bodies are highly varied and many of the features of interest are extremely subtle. The underlying range data is typically noisy and is sparse at occluded areas. In addressing these problems this thesis makes five main research contributions. Firstly, the thesis describes the design, implementation and testing of the whole integrated and automated system from scratch, starting at the image capture hardware. At each stage the tradeoffs between performance criteria are discussed, and experiments are described to test the processes developed. Secondly, a combined data-driven and model-based approach is described and implemented, for surface reconstruction from the raw data. This method addresses the whole body surface, including areas where body segments touch, and other occluded areas. The third contribution is a library of operators, designed specifically for shape description and measurement of the human body. The library provides high-level relational attributes, an 66electronicta pe measure" to extract linear and curvilinear measurements, as well as low-level shape information, such as curvature. Application of the library is demonstrated by building a large set of detectors to find anthropornetric features, based on the ISO 8559 specification. Output is compared against traditional manual measurements and a detailed analysis is presented. The discrepancy between these sets of data is only a few per cent on most dimensions, and the system's reproducibility is shown to be similar to that of skilled manual measurers. The final contribution is that the meshm odelsa nd anthropornetricfe atures,p roducedb y the system, have been used as a starting point to facilitate other research, Such as registration of multiple body images,d rapingc lothing and advanceds urfacem odellingt echniques.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

People who participate in policy-making, from government, academia, industry and civil society, would all prefer their perspectives be regarded as rational. There is little agreement, however, on what comprises rationality, with conflicting claims of 'scientific sense' and 'democratic sensibility', and disagreement on whether moral considerations are part of rational decision-making. Pragmatist philosopher John Dewey drew from the natural and social sciences, as well as his international political experience, to describe rationality as a characteristic of human agency. He posited that rationality should comprise scientific sense, democratic sensibility and moral imagination in order to resolve problematic situations and support individual and social flourishing. In instituting contemporary policy science, Harold Lasswell considered pragmatist philosophy to be its foundation. However, this pragmatist perspective has since been overlooked. Policy science developed with a primarily empirical focus on discrete aspects of policy-making. There is now an identified need for more integrative and normative theories to better understand and guide public policy. The primary goal of this thesis is to demonstrate that rationality, as defined in pragmatist philosophy, can integrate diverse considerations of policy theory and public participation. In order to make the philosophical concepts more operative, a new theory of policy-making - the Decision Cell 3 model - is developed. This model is structured according to key 'pillars' of pragmatist philosophy and shaped by contemporary theoretical and empirical analyses, particularly of health policy. Primary research on the impact of health services and policy research at LSHTM, and on UNICEFcivil society organisation partnerships with respect to children's rights, further informs the development and application of this model. The Decision Cell model also allows for a comparative analysis of normative frameworks for health policy. Mechanisms to facilitate adopting a pragmatist approach to rational policy-making are highlighted, as are the potential advantages and challenges of doing so.

This research seeks to establish a foundation for a posthuman theory of politics that permits novel and explorative politics for the post-anthropocene. The project is situated within new materialist philosophies and pursues its goal through the close engagement with a specific type of advanced technology or immersive gaming technology that is played for political purposes. The arguments and theories developed throughout the thesis are of a metaphysical nature. These claims rework the condition of being and becoming and engage with fundamental ontological, ontogenetic and epistemological questions. Addressing these questions through the thematic case study of gaming technology allows the thesis to trace posthuman bodies and thoughts from their emergence all the way to larger formations that affect political practices. In this sense, gaming scenarios are a test lab not only for emerging posthuman gaming bodies, but also a new political theory associated with it. As such, this thesis is not a gaming critique, but a future-orientated, speculative account on how political games, as a technology characteristic of the posthuman condition, can help to work towards new forms of politics.

This thesis explores the politics of knowing the body at war. It argues that the exclusion of the body from certain political discourses actually involves the assumption of a great deal of knowledge about the body, and correspondingly, a series of decisions about what the body is. I argue that these judgements about what the body is are entailed in much strategic studies literature, which seeks to emphasise the instrumental utility of war, a project which stands at risk of being undermined by the intrusion of the body. I also argue that the exclusion of the body cannot be remedied by a simple act of inclusion, because this fails to deal with the attendant practices of regulation and control which render the body an excludable/includable component of a system of thought. The thesis uses the body at war as a catalyst for the development of a particular way of thinking about the body which refuses the distinction between the material and the discursive, or the biological and the political. Rather, it uses the work of Deleuze and Guattari to develop an understanding of the body which is immediately social and political. In the context of shell shock in the First World War, it traces the way in which the disordered body is constructed as such, and the practices which occlude the extent to which the body is political, seeking instead to return it to realm of the personal. Contrary to this tendency, it adumbrates the ways in which the body has the capacity to destabilise social systems and regimes of knowledge. Because it remains ultimately unknown, the body undermines generalising systems of thought and offers a less totalising way of thinking about war and International Relations.

This thesis examines the relationship between security, politics and revolution. It analyzes securitization theory’s assumptions about politics and how these assumptions underpin processes of securitization. This analysis presents an argument that securitization theory assumes existence of what the thesis calls an established political realm in which processes of securitization take place. The central research question asks how security is constructed when an established political realm is not present and what are the implications for securitization theory. The thesis argues that revolutions offer one example of situations where the political conditions assumed by the theory are missing. The research question is therefore applied to six case studies drawn from the French and the Russian revolutions. The cases cover the declaration of war on Austria in April 1792, the June/July 1917 offensive, the civil wars accompanying the two revolutions, and the rise of new security institutions within both revolutions. The case studies are arranged in a comparative scheme. The thesis aims to contribute to a better understanding of securitization theory and, by extension, the concept of security and its relation to politics.