Thesis (Ph.D.)-Proefschrift Rotterdam, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references and index.

Thesis--Munich. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 199-211).

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This dissertation looks at ways in which memories of traumatic events are revisited and reshaped by mnemonic communities during the Second Temple period. I focus on the social dimensions of traumatic memory that shape collective identity. I consider ways in which the earlier sites of memories of the exodus, the destruction of the first temple, and the Babylonian exile are reactivated and reshaped by mnemonic communities in constructing exclusive collective identities through discourses of exile, separation, and restoration. Drawing on theoretical frameworks from post-Holocaust thought that I outline in Chapter 1, I argue that the language in Ezra-Nehemiah (Chapter 2), 2 Maccabees (Chapter 3), Daniel (Chapter 4), and Damascus Document and Pesher Habakkuk (Chapter 5) is consistent with processes of identity formation in which trauma is construed as a founding, generative, and integrative identity. In developing themes of collective trauma and memory, I focus on Marianne Hirsch’s work on postmemory and Dominick LaCapra’s theories on founding traumas and the conversion of absence and loss. I apply these theories to the aforementioned Second Temple texts by arguing that notions of purity and impurity are established through the memory and postmemory of catastrophic events, including the destruction of the first temple, Babylonian exile, and the persecution by Antiochus IV Epiphanes in 167-164 B.C.E. The producers of these texts mask structural trauma (i.e., the transhistorical absence represented as the loss of an original identity) in its representation of historical trauma and narrate the process of restoration as the recovery of an original identity and unity, which never existed as it is represented in the texts. Chapter 6 is an analysis of notions of purification, hybrids, and multidirectional memory. Engaging with the work of Bruno Latour, I discuss the production and proliferation of hybrids, which emerge from discourses and practices of separation and purification. I use Latour as a segue into Michael Rothberg’s work on multidirectional memory, which shows that those whom some communities attempt to mnemonically and discursively eliminate or purify often share a collective pasts and/or identities.

Two driving forces behind high-performance clusters are the availability of modern interconnects and the advent of multi-core systems. As multi-core clusters become commonplace, where each core will run at least one process with multiple intra-node and inter-node connections to several other processes, there will be immense pressure on the interconnection network and its communication system software. Many parallel scientific applications use Message Passing Interface (MPI) collective communications intensively. Therefore, efficient and scalable implementation of MPI collective operations is critical to the performance of applications running on clusters. In this dissertation, I propose and evaluate a number of efficient collective communication algorithms that utilize the modern features of Quadrics and InfiniBand interconnects as well as the availability of multiple cores on emerging clusters. To overcome bandwidth limitations and to enhance fault tolerance, using multiple independent networks known as multi-rail networks is very promising. Quadrics multi-rail QsNetII network is constructed using multiple network interface cards (NICs) per node, where each NIC is connected to a rail. I design and evaluate a number of Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) based multi-port collective operations on multi-rail QsNetII network. I also extend the gather and allgather algorithms to be shared memory aware for small to medium messages. The algorithms prove to be much more efficient than the native Quadrics MPI implementation. ConnectX is the newest generation of InfiniBand host channel adapters from Mellanox Technologies. I provide evidence that ConnectX achieves scalable performance for simultaneous communication over multiple connections. Utilizing this ability of ConnectX cards, I propose a number of RDMA based multi-connection and multi-core aware allgather algorithms at the MPI level. My algorithms are devised to target different message sizes, and the performance results show that they outperform the native MVAPICH implementation. Recent studies show that MPI processes in real applications could arrive at an MPI collective operation at different times. This imbalanced process arrival pattern can significantly affect the performance of the collective communication operation. Therefore, design and efficient implementation of collectives under different process arrival patterns is critical to the performance of scientific applications running on modern clusters. I propose novel RDMA-based process arrival pattern aware alltoall and allgather for different message sizes over InfiniBand clusters. I also extend the algorithms to be shared memory aware for small to medium messages under process arrival patterns. The performance results indicate that the proposed algorithms outperform the native MVAPICH implementation as well as other non-process arrival pattern aware algorithms when processes arrive at different times. / Thesis (Ph.D, Electrical & Computer Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2010-01-10 21:13:33.249

<p>This thesis focuses on how Public service Co-ordinating Bargaining Council (PSCBC) contributes to social dialogue within South African Public service. This thesis seeks to filL a significant literature gap on collective bargaining as accomplished by the PSCBC. The thesis briefly examines the history of collective bargaining in the South African Public Service. The research methodology used includes information gleaned from annual reports published by the PSCBC. Interviews of selected stakeholders such as government officials and labour organisations involved in the PSCBC were conducted.The thesis holds that historically an adversarial relationship existed between the state as employer and the recognised trade unions.</p>

With widespread fears of climate change, global warming, and policymakers calling for reducing our consumption, it is important that we have an understanding of antecedents of consumers’ environmentally-friendly consumption behaviors. In this research, we conduct two studies to examine the interaction effect of environmental identity and perceived responsibility for global warming on consumers’ collective guilt and its subsequent effect on intentions to engage in environmentally-friendly behaviors. Further, we examine a mechanism by which the feeling of collective guilt may be avoided by some. Extending the study by Ferguson and Branscombe (2010), we show that when environmental degradation is perceived to be caused by humans (as opposed to natural factors), it leads to a feeling of collective guilt among those who identify highly with the environment. This collective guilt encourages environmentally-friendly consumption behavior.

The study was conducted to determine the ways in which representatives of school corporations and teacher organizations prepared for collective bargaining in 1974. The participants in the study were spokesmen for employer and employee negotiating teams who responded to a questionnaire sent to administrators and teachers in a random sample to fifty school corporations and teacher organizations in Indiana.Findings of the study were:1. A majority of teacher organizations polled the teachers to ascertain what they wanted in a contract.2. Almost three-fourths of the administrative teams attended workshops, conferences, or seminars on collective bargaining to prepare for the collective bargaining process.No other preparations were considered to be among the three most important preparations for collective bargaining by a majority of either school administrators or spokesmen for teacher organizations.State teacher organizations and school boards associations exerted limited influence upon the local participants in the collective bargaining process.

This dissertation looks at ways in which memories of traumatic events are revisited and reshaped by mnemonic communities during the Second Temple period. I focus on the social dimensions of traumatic memory that shape collective identity. I consider ways in which the earlier sites of memories of the exodus, the destruction of the first temple, and the Babylonian exile are reactivated and reshaped by mnemonic communities in constructing exclusive collective identities through discourses of exile, separation, and restoration. Drawing on theoretical frameworks from post-Holocaust thought that I outline in Chapter 1, I argue that the language in Ezra-Nehemiah (Chapter 2), 2 Maccabees (Chapter 3), Daniel (Chapter 4), and Damascus Document and Pesher Habakkuk (Chapter 5) is consistent with processes of identity formation in which trauma is construed as a founding, generative, and integrative identity. In developing themes of collective trauma and memory, I focus on Marianne Hirsch’s work on postmemory and Dominick LaCapra’s theories on founding traumas and the conversion of absence and loss. I apply these theories to the aforementioned Second Temple texts by arguing that notions of purity and impurity are established through the memory and postmemory of catastrophic events, including the destruction of the first temple, Babylonian exile, and the persecution by Antiochus IV Epiphanes in 167-164 B.C.E. The producers of these texts mask structural trauma (i.e., the transhistorical absence represented as the loss of an original identity) in its representation of historical trauma and narrate the process of restoration as the recovery of an original identity and unity, which never existed as it is represented in the texts. Chapter 6 is an analysis of notions of purification, hybrids, and multidirectional memory. Engaging with the work of Bruno Latour, I discuss the production and proliferation of hybrids, which emerge from discourses and practices of separation and purification. I use Latour as a segue into Michael Rothberg’s work on multidirectional memory, which shows that those whom some communities attempt to mnemonically and discursively eliminate or purify often share a collective pasts and/or identities.

With widespread fears of climate change, global warming, and policymakers calling for reducing our consumption, it is important that we have an understanding of antecedents of consumers’ environmentally-friendly consumption behaviors. In this research, we conduct two studies to examine the interaction effect of environmental identity and perceived responsibility for global warming on consumers’ collective guilt and its subsequent effect on intentions to engage in environmentally-friendly behaviors. Further, we examine a mechanism by which the feeling of collective guilt may be avoided by some. Extending the study by Ferguson and Branscombe (2010), we show that when environmental degradation is perceived to be caused by humans (as opposed to natural factors), it leads to a feeling of collective guilt among those who identify highly with the environment. This collective guilt encourages environmentally-friendly consumption behavior.