Rather than functioning as an icon, Involuted Matter dissolves into the background of commercial construction, conceals difference at the envelope, and orchestrates a succession of alternate environments. Accepting the unifying neutrality of a larger framework this project articulates difference at the individual site. But unlike iconic projects, the real force of this thesis unfolds through the interior. Identity is formed not at the level of district, but is centered on the individual occupation of a specific place. The program for this project is a jimjilbang or Korean Bath House. The jimjilbang has the potential to become a new form of collective space not typical of the American metropolis. The bath house is simultaneously an intimate and egalitarian public venue and a private center for personal well being. Immersed in the same waters and ambient environments, clothed in matching jimjilbang attire, a plurality of classes, age groups, and social values congregate around a common program.

The sculpting of ultracold neutral plasmas represents a frontier in the experimental study of collective modes in strongly coupled plasmas. By extending the range of accessible length scales to less than tens of microns we gain access to a regime where The sculpting of ultracold neutral plasmas represents a frontier in the experimental study of collective modes in strongly coupled plasmas. By extending the range of accessible length scales to less than tens of microns we gain access to a regime where strong coupling's effects are predicted yet largely untested. To this effort, high resolution optical systems were designed, bench tested and implemented for sculpting and imaging ultracold neutral plasmas. Many complications and unexpected effects were documented to assist future experimental design considerations, including, those due to saturation and optical thickness, both of which limit the utility of 461 nm push beam modulations. It was concluded that sculpting should be performed on the 412 nm ionizing beam and real-time density space analysis is reliable for spatial frequencies up to 5 cyc/mm by using 4X magnified imaging. Higher spatial frequencies benefit from velocity space analysis due to extremely fast dynamics and low intensity levels.

En förutsättning för att kunna förhindra att terrorattacker utförs är kunskap om de bakomliggande motiven och drivkrafterna. Om vi känner till de bakomliggande motiven och drivkrafterna finns det möjlighet att kunna påverka dessa faktorer och därigenom minska risken för nya terrorattacker. I den här studien undersöker jag om collective action frames och rational choice teorin var för sig eller tillsammans kan förklara orsakerna till terrorism. Fram till idag har den strategiska modellen varit den mest använda teorin för att förklara orsaker till terrorism. Modellen utgår från rational choice teorin men har avgränsats till att enbart hantera politiska faktorer, vilket har kritiserats. Kritikerna menar att människors känslor har en betydelse för deras handlingar. Här prövar jag två teorier som teoretiskt kan förklara känslornas betydelse för att människor utför terrorhandlingar, dels rational choice teorin och dels collective action frames. Studien visar att teorierna kompletterar varandra men det är enbart rational choice teorin som förklarar orsaker till handlingarna, och då endast rationellt motiverade instrumentella handlingar. Det är många handlingar som inte kan förklaras med någon av teorierna. Slutsatsen är att det sannolikt inte finns en generell teori som kan förklara alla olika typer av handlingar ner till en sådan detaljnivå att resultatet faktiskt är användbart. Det finns många olika motiv och drivkrafter som kan ligga bakom en handling och det finns så många olika användningsområden för resultaten att en enda teori skulle bli oanvändbar då det sannolikt är alldeles för många parametrar att hantera inom ett och samma teoribygge.

Viktigt för ett bra gruppklimat är bland annat gruppens kommunikationsmönster och tidigare framgångar, något som är beroende av tydliga mål för arbetet. Tidigare forskning har påvisat ett positivt samband mellan gruppens kollektiva efficacy och dess prestationer. Området kollektiv efficacy är relativt välforskat, dock tycks frågan om vilka faktorer som har betydelse för kollektiv efficacy i arbetsgruppen stå relativt obesvarad. Inom området dominerar kvantitativ metod, varpå en kvalitativ ansats bedömdes lämplig i denna undersökning. Syftet med denna undersökning var att undersöka vilka faktorer som har betydelse för individens upplevelse av kollektiv efficacy i arbetsgruppen. Undersökningen baserades på intervjuer med 7 medlemmar av olika arbetsgrupper inom vitt skilda branscher. Kärnan i berättelserna om individens upplevelse av kollektiv efficacy låg i betydelsen av stöd och delaktighet på arbetsplatsen, både mellan medlemmarna i gruppen och mellan arbetsgruppen och ledningen. Slutsatsen är att gruppmedlemmars upplevelse av kollektiv efficacy är beroende av samspelet mellan inomgruppsfaktorer och ledarskapsfaktorer.

A blog, a shortened form of weblog, is a website where an author shares thoughts in posts or entries. Most blogs permit readers to add comments to posts and thereby be a conversational mechanism. One way that companies have started to use blogs is to monitor their corporate image (in this dissertation, the term image is used in reference to corporate, brand and/or product image). This study focuses on how common socio-psychological processes mediate consumers’ revelation of corporate image in the blogosphere. Centering resonance analysis, a means of measuring similarity between two bodies of text, is used in conjunction with multidimensional scaling to locate text as cognitive objects in a space. Clusters are then detected and measured to quantify diversity in the thoughts expressed. Detected patterns are studied from a social process theory perspective, where complex phenomena are hypothesized to be the result of the interaction of simpler processes. A majority of blog commenters compromise the expression of their thoughts to gain social acceptance. This study identifies the most extreme of such people so companies who monitor blogs can assign less weight to image indications gained from them as they may be merely expressing thoughts that are intended to maintain social acceptance. It was also found that single-theme blogs attract a readership with similarly narrow interests. The boldest and most diverse thinkers among comment writers have the most impact because of their ability to provoke the thinking of others. However, commenters who repeat the same ideas have little effect, suggesting that introducing shills is unlikely to shift the sentiment of a blog’s readership. People participate in blog communities for reasons (e.g., need for community) that may undermine thought diversity. However, there may be value in serving those needs even though no valuable insights are provided into image or directions for product development. Members of homogeneous-thinking communities were observed to more actively participate, with greater longevity. This may increase loyalty to the company hosting the blog.

The purpose of the study was to investigate relationships among teacher selfefficacy, trust, and collective efficacy among teachers in a southwest Texas school district. The research included three established surveys combined to create a single survey. A multivariate analysis of variance was conducted to analyze the data from the survey. The study analyzed the results of surveys completed by 746 teachers. The surveys completed were the Teachers’ Sense of Self-Efficacy Scale, Collective Efficacy Scale, and Omnibus T-Scale. Factors considered in the analysis of data included gender, number of years of experience, ethnicity, and the level of mentorship provided. A multivariate analysis of variance was conducted to assess if differences exist in the Teachers’ Sense of Self-Efficacy Scale subscales of student engagement, instructional strategies, classroom management, Omnibus T-Scale subscale of trust in principal, trust in colleagues, trust in clients, and collective efficacy between schools. The results suggest that simultaneous differences exist in dependent variables between schools. However, further analysis also showed all schools with the exception of one scored higher than 84 percent of the standardized school sample in trust in students’ ability to perform. In comparing survey responses across teacher demographics, results showed gender differences in trust in principal, trust in clients, and collective efficacy. When comparing the responses to national averages, the results were as follows: self-efficacy showed patterns that were below average, trust showed patterns that were above average, and collective efficacy was average. This research study contributes to the theoretical rationale explaining the relationship between self-efficacy, collective efficacy, and trust. Further research could be done in the area for school administrators to improve student achievement through working to raise collective efficacy beliefs and trust of their faculty.

This study aims to investigate the changes and trend for the official policies, celebration activities, and ceremonies of national holidays¡¦ in Taiwan over the period of 1950 to 2004. The interactions and confrontations among competing authorities in defining the time and space for national holidays, and the process by which they influence Taiwanese people¡¦s collective memory are further studied. The method applied is literature review and historical analysis. The findings show that the formation and development of Taiwanese national holidays¡¦ are the outcomes of a love story and sometime struggles between political and other social powers. Utilizing the uniqueness and the special sphere of time and space, politicians and other groups co-construct a collective memory that serves their own interests. There are affinities between national holidays and religions, as the legitimacy of their existence, activities and ceremonies both come from the ¡§sacred canopy¡¨ provided by the belief system. The later grants the national holidays with sacred values, and thus made the existence, activities and ceremonies of the former possible. However, while the making of national holiday¡¦s collective memory is dominated by political authorities, they have their limitations. As we shall present in the study, there are competing forces in the pursuit of legitimacy. These interventional and balancing factors include economic factors, ideologies of confronting political parties as well as leisure culture. They are actually the most important factors in the changes and development of national holidays. They come from and also reflect on the social change. It is also clear that the ¡§the holiday overset phenomenon¡¨ has started since the Lee Deng Huei period.

No description available.

The labor costs and risk of law of industrial disputes in China will groundswell with the Labor Contract Law of the PRC which has been enforced on January 1st, 2008. After enforcing the law, the increasing costs such as severance pay, financial compensation fee, the earnest of staffing placement will be estimated; at present, the Taiwanese businessmen in Shanghai had estimated the labor costs of each employee will increase 50%. However, the invisible costs, impeding management, such as the employer¡¦s command will be negotiated from only hold in employers becomes on equal terms with employees, the employers perhaps turn to relative press, even operate the working time, time off arrangement, insurance and so on. All of these will increase difficulties on human resource management. The research attempts to analyze the Labor Contract Law of the PRC, evaluates strategies of legislation from reflecting background of draft to processing of adoption, and compares differences between the new and old Labor Contract Law of the PRC, especially the Taiwanese businessmen common usage logic of Labor Law to treat the relationship between employers and employees, all of these questions should be in new evaluation standards by legislation of the Labor Contract Law of the PRC. The research collected books, articles, literatures and practical opinions in recently years to compare and analyze the Labor Contract Law of the PRC, Labor Contract Law of R.O.C and Labor Contract Law in each Country. Otherwise, analyzing three traditional industries by ¡§Analytic Hierarchy Process¡¨ and the Pearl River Delta in Dongguan as an object practically to interview the directors of Taiwanese businessmen in department of human resource arrangement and realizes their opinions and defenses after executing the Labor Contract Law of the PRC. The results of research shows after executing the new Labor Contract Law, not only makes sure the setting procedure of the Collective Contract and emphasizes the efficacy of the Collective Contract and relationship with Labor Contract Law, but also firstly provides regulation for the regional and industrial Collective Contract and exclusively Collective Contract in Law. The regulation asserts and completes the Collective Contract system, and be more important consorting with relationship between employers and employees. It is the front burner that department of human resource arrangement should re-inspect whether the Labor Contract Law legal or not to avoid suddenly complication and compensation.

Dissertation--München--Ludwig-Maximilians Universität. / Bibliogr. p. 350-386.