Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 1974. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 181-185). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center.

Networks of indigenous irrigating farmers played an influential role in the Cochabamba Water War of 2000 that succeeded in ousting the major water company Bechtel from Bolivia and securing changes to the national legislation to recognize indigenous water rights. In their mobilization against privatization, the irrigators used a narrative grounded in the defense of their water rights and traditional uses and customs or usos y costumbres. Following the Water War, the irrigators effectively organized to have their traditional water rights recognized in the new Irrigation Law no. 2878, which was signed into law in 2004, and the Regulations, which came into effect in 2006. This paper critically examines the impacts of the Irrigation Law on access to water in the heavily farmed region of the Cochabamba Valley. It asks whether the social inequalities amongst farming communities, often exacerbated by usos y costumbres, are being reinforced through the law’s implementation. An analysis of the political processes of institutional change and the power dynamics in the rural water sector reveals that the configuration of power asymmetries formalized in the Irrigation Law maintains unequal access to water resources.

Firstly, this Study focuses on ¡§Border Measures¡¨ in World Trade Organization¡]WTO¡^Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights¡]TRIPS¡^and in World Customs Organization¡]WCO¡^¡§Model Legislation¡¨. These two measures appear to form the backbone of China Intellectual Property Rights¡]IPR¡^ border protection for the time being. Other reasons for China Customs to implement IPR protection are U.S-China IPR MOUs. Secondly, after this explanatory study on China Customs¡¦ border measures, we find some structural problems existing in PRC¡¦s¡]People¡¦s Republic of China¡^General Administration of Customs¡]GAC¡^ that IPR infringements couldn¡¦t be eliminated at all. Owing to the PRC¡¦s special political-economic conditions, China Customs¡¦ IPR border measures cannot achieve the international standard. They cannot effectively limit the import/export of infringements or counterfeit goods. In their enactment as well as in enforcement of IPR border measures, China Customs still has a long way to go.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

Thesis (J.C.L.)--Catholic University of America, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 59-65).

Thesis (Th. M.)--Regent College, Vancouver, BC, 2001. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 149-156).

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of History, 2003. / Title from first page of PDF document. Document formatted into pages; contains ii, 54 p. : ill. Includes bibliographical references (p. 50-54).

Thesis (Th. M.)--Dallas Theological Seminary, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 95-96).

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 2002. Graduate Programme in Psychology. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 127-136). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pMQ71583.

This thesis is an empirical study on the phenomenon of compensated dating [hereafter known as CD] in Hong Kong. It examines the lived experiences of CD participants and their self-understandings of their identities and behaviors. Drawing from formal in-depth interviews with 30 male clients and 12 young women who provided CD, cyber ethnography of a major online CD forum, informal conversations with CD participants and offline participant observations of various types of non-commercial and non-sexual social gatherings amongst groups of CD participants from the period between March 2010 and December 2012, this thesis examines why and how individuals come to be involved in CD, how they form intimacies in the context of CD and the nature of these intimacies. In the process, it illuminates the emerging social phenomenon of CD in light of the transformation of intimacy, plastic sexuality, new female and male biographies, gender relationships, the advance of information technology, and various social changes in an increasing fragmented and risky society as we enter into the world of late modernity. This thesis argues that CD participants perceive CD as a space for practicing plastic sexuality rather than a form of prostitution. The fact that sex does not necessarily happen in CD, the dynamic interactions amongst CD participants, and the changes of conventional sexual script from a marital, reproductive and monogamous one to a non-marital, non-reproductive, recreational, non-monogamous and even emotionally indifferent one make the CD script more like the mainstream sexual script in late modernity and less like the traditional commercial sexual script. The resemblance between the CD script and modern intimacy serves as a major rationale for CD participants to justify their CD behaviors. This thesis also argues that male clients of CD desire more than just bounded authenticity and that CD relationship is a complex and dynamic interpersonal relationship rather than a simple and static seller-buyer relationship because more often than not, CD participants extend their relationships beyond a bounded, commercial sexual context to an unbounded, non-commercial social context. This thesis examines the factors that facilitate CD participants to transform an impersonal and bounded commercial relationship to a genuine and unbounded interpersonal and/or romantic relationship. This thesis concludes that although CD relationships may be ephemeral, precarious and founded on economic elements, so too are many conventional relationships in modern society. There is an increasing intellectual tension to demarcate between CD relations and conventional intimate relations because while the former underscores the romantic and reciprocal qualities of the later, the later also reflects the recreational, economic and unstable elements of the former. Although plastic sexuality, the transformation of intimacy and various consequences of modernity are not in themselves the causes of the emergence of CD, they do create the contexts of an environment that is favorable to the development and growth of the CD phenomenon. / published_or_final_version / Sociology / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy