Thesis advisor: Patrick Proctor / This study is an investigation of Arabic native speakers' (ANSs) acquisition of the English causative-inchoative alternation (e.g. <italic>Tom broke the vase</italic> vs. <italic>The vase broke</italic>). Emphasis is placed on the relationship between English proficiency, language transfer, and Universal Grammar mechanisms in ANSs' interlanguage representations. Four central research questions guide the study: (1) Does the English causative-inchoative alternation pose a learnability problem for ANSs? (2) Do ANSs distinguish between unaccusative and unergative verbs in English? (3) Are there L1 transfer effects on ANSs' acquisition of the English causative-inchoative alternation? (4) Are there differences across English proficiency levels with respect to the answers to questions 1-3? To address these questions, an acceptability judgment and correction task was administered to a total of 119 ANSs (from the Gaza Strip, Palestine) of different English proficiency levels. Additionally, 23 American native speakers of English served as controls. The results obtained from data analyses indicated that the English causative-inchoative alternation posed a learnability problem for the Arab participants. They exhibited four major non-target behaviors: overpassivization (both ungrammatical and unnatural), overcausativization, underpassivization, and undercausativization. It is argued that these errors can largely be attributed to L1 transfer, since Arabic is significantly different from English in terms of how to encode the causative-inchoative alternation. The results also revealed sensitivity to the unaccusative-unergative distinction in English, which supports the hypothesis that ANSs have access to the innate mechanisms of Universal Grammar. Moreover, while interlanguage development towards target-like behavior was observed across proficiency groups, certain test conditions revealed a strong influence of L1 transfer on even the high proficiency participants. The findings from the study are inconsistent with the modular view of L1 transfer (Montrul, 2000), but they lend support to the hypothesis that L1 transfer operates not only on morphology, but on lexical argument structure as well (Whong-Barr, 2005). The study is an attempt to fill a gap in the literature, since no research has specifically investigated the acquisition of the English causative-inchoative alternation by ANSs. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Curriculum and Instruction.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart uses humor to explore, analyze, and criticize current media and political trends, politicians, and campaigns. Reappropriation uses video as an argument against the original producers of that content, one of the tools used to highlight the problems with the political and current media coverage. The effectiveness of using reappropriated video is analyzed through a rhetorical analysis, combining argumentative analysis and functional analysis. Through this analysis a structure is developed for three types of arguments used by The Daily Show: highlighting absurdity, the political fact check and highlighting contradictions, and exposing social and media patterns. The analysis explores the strengths and weaknesses of each type of reappropriation, and the structural form of the argument.

Syftet med mitt examensarbete är att undersöka vilka argument som finns för gymnasieskolans matematikundervisning, samt hur läroplan och kursplaner förhåller sig till dessa argument. Därigenom hoppas jag kunna befästa skolmatematiken som sådan, men även bygga upp en arsenal av argument för att bemöta framtida elevers behov av motivation. För att uppnå detta syfte har jag genomfört en litteraturstudie av olika forskares och matematikdidaktikers texter kring argumenten för skolmatematiken och sedan kategoriserat dessa i fyra argumentskategorier. Därefter har jag försökt utreda argumentens implikationer i skolverksamheten. Resultaten visar att vissa av argumentskategorierna vilar på en ganska osäker grund, medan andra är väl underbyggda. Detta till trots förmår inget argument att ensamt bära skolmatematiken, utan olika delar bärs upp av olika argument.

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I en demokrati är yttrandefriheten en grundbult. Men ett demokratiskt samhälle innefattar även religionsfriheten, som skyddar individers eller gruppers rättighet att utöva religion. Religiösa utövare placerar ofta religionen över allt annat och individens frihet att yttra sig uppfattas därmed som sekundärt. Det resulterar ofta i att religion blir måltavla för kränkande yttringar, något som av de religiösa uppfattas som otillåtligt. Den 19 augusti 2007 publicerades Lars Vilks blyertsteckning ”Profeten Muhammed som rondellhund.” Karikatyren spred sig snabbt och extremister placerade Vilks på sin officiella dödslista. Vilks testar gränser och de religiösa reagerar, ett tydligt exempel på den turbulens som kan skapas mellan yttrandefrihet och religionsfrihet. Genom en analys av de argument som förs fram i debatten om Lars Vilks, är vårt syfte att skapa en ökad förståelse för det ambivalenta förhållandet mellan yttrandefrihet och religionsfrihet. Vår frågeställning består av två delar: Vilka är de mest frekventa för- och motargumenten som förs fram i debatten kring Lars Vilks i samband med yttrandefrihet och religionsfrihet? Hur kan vi, genom dessa för- och motargument, skapa förståelse för det ambivalenta förhållandet mellan yttrandefrihet och religionsfrihet? Studien bygger på en argumentationsanalys, som fokuserar på debatten om Lars Vilks i samband med yttrandefrihet och religionsfrihet. Empirin utgörs av 62 åsiktsartiklar, hämtade från tidningarna Dagens Nyheter och Expressen från åren 2007, 2010 samt 2015. För att ha ett påstående att förhålla oss till urskilde vi vår huvudtes: Religion får inte inskränka yttrandefriheten i en demokrati. Utifrån det identifierade vi fyra argument som understödjer tesen: I en demokrati får man kränka religion, Ett demokratiskt samhälle ska inte tystas av hot och rädsla, Yttrandefriheten är grundläggande i en demokrati och Religion måste utmanas för att samhället ska utvecklas, samt två som undergräver tesen: Yttranden om religion bör inte användas omdömeslöst och Yttrandefrihet ska inte utnyttjas i syfte att kränka religion. Anhängarna argumenterar för att alla åsikter får yttras. En vädring av obekväma yttranden anses vara avgörande för det demokratiska samhället. Opponenterna anser att oförnuftiga yttranden leder till ett mer konfliktfyllt samhälle och att de därför bör begränsas. Det ambivalenta förhållandet belyses extra i och med att majoriteten argumenterar för att yttrandefriheten är grundläggande i en demokrati, men att utlåtanden kräver ett personligt ansvar. Det personliga ansvaret är dock subjektivt, och en gränsdragning för vad som bör och inte bör sägas blir svår, framför allt i ett samhälle som känner sig hotat av extremister. För att förstå det ambivalenta förhållandet mellan yttrandefrihet och religionsfrihet är det nödvändigt att begripa konflikten mellan de legala rättigheterna och de moraliska förpliktelserna.

A number of recent objections to physicalism are based on the apparent gap between physical knowledge and phenomenal knowledge. In response, some physicalists accept the epistemic gap, but deny the inference from the epistemic gap to a metaphysical gap. One popular strategy is to argue that there is something unique about our phenomenal concepts, the concepts that we use to think about our phenomenal states in terms of their subjective character, that explains the apparent gap. I develop a version of this strategy.Specifically, I argue that phenomenal-physical identities are necessarily true. These identities only seem contingent due to peculiarities of our phenomenal concepts. Phenomenal concepts have a unique connection to their referents; they are "self-presenting" concepts, which include their referents as components of the concepts themselves. Regardless of how we conceptualize the world, a phenomenal concept will always refer to the phenomenal state. But this is not true of non-phenomenal concepts, even concepts like `H2O' that seem to get at the essence of their referents. There is always an element of contingency in the connection between a non-phenomenal concept and its referent.When we consider an identity between a phenomenal concept and a non-phenomenal concept, like `pain = the firing of p-neurons', the more intimate connection between the phenomenal concept and its referent generates the intuition that the two concepts could come apart. This is true in a sense. If we were to adopt conceptualize things differently, the physical concept might not refer to the same state. For example, if we were to adopt a different theory of neuroscience, we might not conceptualize the firing of p-neurons as `the firing of p-neurons'. Phenomenal concepts, on the other hand, will always pick out the same referents, regardless of how we represent the world. For this reason, the concepts `pain' and `the firing of p-neurons' do come apart, but not in a sense that makes trouble for physicalism. What is possible is not a world in which pain isn't identical to the firing of p-neurons, but only a world in which pain isn't conceptualized as the firing of p-neurons.

Dans les coulisses des compétitions handisports de haut-niveau se déroule une épreuve inaccessible au regard du public : le processus de classification. L’expertise, impérative pour attribuer une classe à chaque sportif se matérialise par une série d’opérations effectuées aussi bien par les classificateurs que par les principaux protagonistes : observer, mesurer, quantifier, qualifier, comparer, protester, délibérer… Cette quête d’objectivité s’organise dans plusieurs arènes (vestiaires, Bureau Exécutif du Comité International Paralympique, Commission de Classification, laboratoires). Mais l’impression de stabilité du dispositif contraste avec les témoignages et les observations visant les protocoles d’examen des corps. Les dirigeants cherchent donc à entretenir l’intérêt de la compétition pour les pratiquants et les spectateurs. La complexité du processus apparaît comme un polyptyque évolutif dans lequel les acteurs tentent de mettre de l’ordre et dont le sociologue s’attache à rassembler les pièces éparpillées, tel un commissaire d’exposition.La recherche du langage sociologique le plus approprié permet d’analyser l’adoption, l’entretien, ou l’abandon de la croyance dans l’efficacité du dispositif dont l’enjeu final est la crédibilité des Jeux Paralympiques. Comment est rendue possible et acceptable la mise en équivalence de sportifs aux corps uniques ? Comment les acteurs œuvrent à transformer ou à maintenir en l’état un dispositif qui sépare des individus en même temps qu’il les regroupe? L’enquête permet de comprendre les conditions d’existence du handisport et du sport adapté de compétition et contribue à la réflexion sur les frontières entre les individus. / Backstage of disabled sports competitions high-level event takes place an inaccessible trial to public sight : the classification process. Expertise, imperative to assign a class to each athlete is materialized by a series of operations performed by both classifiers and the main protagonists: observe, measure, quantify, qualify, compare, protest, deliberate ... This quest for objectivity is organized in several arenas (locker rooms, the Executive Board of the International Paralympic Committee, Committee on Classification, laboratories). But the impression of stability of the device contrast with testimonies and observations criticizing the review body protocols. Therefore, institutional leaders are seeking to maintain the interest of competition for practitioners and spectators. The complexity of the process appears to be an evolving polyptych in which actors attempt to bring order and that sociologist try to reassemble the pieces scattered, like a curator. The search for the most appropriate sociological language use to analyze the adoption, maintenance, or abandonment of the belief in the effectiveness of the device whose final issue is the credibility of the Paralympic Games. How is possible and acceptable equity with so unique sports body? How actors work to transform or maintain a device that separate or aggregate individuals in the same time? The survey allows us to understand the conditions of disable sport and adapted sport competition and contributes to the debate on the boundaries between individuals.

Semantic role labeling is an important stage in systems for Natural Language Understanding. The basic problem is one of identifying who did what to whom for each predicate in a sentence. Thus labeling is a two-step process: identify constituent phrases that are arguments to a predicate, then label those arguments with appropriate thematic roles. Existing systems for semantic role labeling use machine learning methods to assign roles one-at-a-time to candidate arguments. There are several drawbacks to this general approach. First, more than one candidate can be assigned the same role, which is undesirable. Second, the search for each candidate argument is exponential with respect to the number of words in the sentence. Third, single-role assignment cannot take advantage of dependencies known to exist between semantic roles of predicate arguments, such as their relative juxtaposition. And fourth, execution times for existing algorithm are excessive, making them unsuitable for real-time use. This thesis seeks to obviate these problems by approaching semantic role labeling as a multi-argument classification process. It observes that the only valid arguments to a predicate are unembedded constituent phrases that do not overlap that predicate. Given that semantic role labeling occurs after parsing, this thesis proposes an algorithm that systematically traverses the parse tree when looking for arguments, thereby eliminating the vast majority of impossible candidates. Moreover, instead of assigning semantic roles one at a time, an algorithm is proposed to assign all labels simultaneously; leveraging dependencies between roles and eliminating the problem of duplicate assignment. Experimental results are provided as evidence to show that a combination of the proposed argument identification and multi-argument classification algorithms outperforms all existing systems that use the same syntactic information.

This thesis examines whether animal biotechnology is compatible with the norms of animal welfare, environment, and public health. For this purpose, it explores two lines of ethical controversy — intrinsic argument and extrinsic argument. The intrinsic argument against biotechnology maintains that it is “objectionable in itself”. On the other hand, according to extrinsic argument animal biotechnology is ethically wrong because it has got negative consequences upon human beings, animals, and environment.  However, it is also true that biotechnology (whether animal or agricultural) is one of the means of our living today. We cannot deny or oppose its usefulness all on a sudden. We need to be careful as well as critical in this regard. Therefore, it is an imperative that we select tools for making better assessment of biotechnology. In order to examine the ethical acceptability of animal biotechnology, we need to assess the impact of this technology and its potential effects upon the four interest factors: (i) consumers, (ii) farmers and financiers, (iii) treated organisms, and (iv) environment. In this regard, I have opted for Mepham’s ethical matrix, which is a practical approach for addressing broader policy issues. I think that ethical matrix is such a theory that it can incorporate the demand of science and the multidimensional complexity of it that exists today. Mepham’s ethical matrix can lead one towards rational ethical analysis and weighing and integrating potentially conflicting values in the decision-making process. At the end of this study, I have focused on the application of Mepham’s ethical matrix upon some contexts of animal biotechnology, such as bST, transgenic animal, and xenotransplantation. Finally, through the analysis, I came to the conclusion that none of the ethical tools or theories can materially represent the problems to facilitate the ethical debate about animal biotechnology.