The opportunities created by the end of the Mao Era and legislature promoting the rights of African Americans and women in the mid-twentieth century allowed women of both cultures to break further into the literary scene and negotiate their own sense of agency through their work. Although Western feminism also grew rapidly throughout this period, its ethnocentric centering of gender prevented it from being a reliable lens with which to analyze the work of Chinese and African American women who experienced issues of race, class, and gender simultaneously. This caused Western feminists to evaluate the work of Chinese and African American women from a perspective of privilege and misrepresented the cultural, social, and political influences that impacted their agency. Thus, this paper seeks to evaluate the effectiveness of the intersectional paradigm as a comparative lens with which to analyze the construction of female characters in mid-twentieth century Chinese and African American fiction in place of a Western feminist lens. To this effect, it will apply the intersectional lens to Toni Morrison's Sula (1973) and Wang Anyi's Song of Everlasting Sorrow (2008) specifically, to determine how this research paradigm can be used to reveal the identities the female protagonists construct and their opportunities for agency. This paper hopes to increase discourse on the applications of intersectionality in literature as a tool for better understanding the literature of women of color.

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This is a study of how two companies from different countries construct and communicate their Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The companies are from the confectionery industry with a similar size, sales, and number of factories. The only difference is the origin of the companies. One is from a developed country (Cloetta based in Sweden) and another is from a developing country (Roshen based in Ukraine). The combination of critical discourse and comparative analysis is used in the study to explain the contexts of countries and companies. The analytical categories are based on Triple Bottom Line Theory and the value-based concept of Sustainability.   The study shows the differences in the constructs of Sustainability and CSR of companies from Sweden and Ukraine. Cloetta's communication is used as a form of legitimization and a tool of green marketing (for enhancing the image and its repair in case of a crisis). Roshen's communication is less developed and used as a self-promotion tool (sustainability understood as philanthropy). The findings add the knowledge in Sustainability and CSR traditions in developing and developed countries.

Med flera alternativ att välja mellan för att designa och utveckla webbsidor kan det vara svårt för en nybörjarutvecklare att veta vad man ska välja. Detta examensarbete jämför hur enkelt det är för en nybörjare att lära sig och använda de två Content Management Systemen (CMS) Concrete5 och RefineryCMS för att bygga en webbapplikation. Concrete5 använder PHP och RefineryCMS använder Ruby och lättheten i att lära sig grunderna i dessa programmeringsspråk diskuteras också.För att jämföra dessa två CMS, dokumenterades olika steg. Implementationen utfördes på en MacBook Pro, OS X 10.9.2, sen 2011 modell. Relevanta delar av funktionaliteten jämfördes även med hjälp av Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 2.0.Resultaten visade en signifikant skillnad mellan de två CMS:en, även om båda har sina för- och nackdelar. Sammanfattningsvis ansågs Concrete5 som det CMS:et med bättre aspekter för att bygga en enkel hemsida med de förutsättningar som fanns och tack vare de många funktioner det erbjöd användaren. RefineryCMS kanske kunde ha fungerat bättre om det var under andra förutsättningar, vilket inte kan dras som en slutsats i denna uppsats. / With many options to choose from when designing and developing websites, it can be difficult for a beginner developer to know what to choose. This thesis compares how easy it is for a beginner to learn and use the two Content Management Systems (CMS) Concrete5 and RefineryCMS to build a web application. Concrete5 uses PHP and RefineryCMS uses Ruby and the ease of learning the basics of these programming languages is also discussed.To compare the two CMSs, different steps were documented and compared. The implementation was done on a MacBook Pro, OS X 10.9.2, late 2011 model. Relevant features were also compared according to the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 2.0.The results showed a significant difference between the two CMSs, even though both had their benefits and drawbacks. In conclusion, Concrete5 was better for building a basic website under the writer’s conditions, thanks to the many features, modules, packages, plugins and templates available, and because it required less time and effort to install. This conclusion is limited to the writer’s conditions and it is possible that RefineryCMS could have worked better than found, if the conditions had been different.

The development of ubiquitous mobile computing devices has fueled the need for dynamic reconfigurable networks. Mobile ad-hoc network (MANET) routing protocols facilitate the creation of such networks, without centralized infrastructure. One of the challenges in the study of MANET routing protocols is the evaluation and design of an effective routing protocol that works at low data rates and responds to dynamic changes in network topology due to node mobility. Several routing protocols have been standardized by the Internet Engineering Task force (IETF) to address ad-hoc routing requirements. The performance of these protocols are investigated in detail in this thesis. A relatively new approach to ad-hoc routing using the concept of a Minimal Connected Dominating Set (MCDS) has been developed at Virginia Tech. The OSPF-MCDS routing protocol is a modified version of the traditional Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) wired routing protocol which incorporates the MCDS framework. Enhancements to the protocol implementation to support multiple-interface routing are presented in this thesis. The protocol implementation was also ported to ns-2, a popular open source network simulator. Several enhancements to the implementation and simulation model are discussed along with simulation specifics. New scenario visualization tools for mobility pattern generation and analysis are described. A generic framework and tutorial for developing new ad-hoc routing simulation models are also presented. The simulation model developed is used to compare the performance characteristics of OSPF-MCDS to three different standardized MANET routing protocols. Simulation results presented here show that no single protocol can achieve optimal performance for all mobility cases. Different observations from simulation experiments are summarized that support the likely candidate for different mobility scenarios. / Master of Science

No / A cross-cultural comparison of traditional household remedies in primary health care and ritual healing practices in two economically and socio-demographically similar communities in Lucania (inland southern Italy) was considered: Ginestra/Zhurë, inhabited by ethnic Albanians, who migrated to the area during the 15th century, and Castelmezzano, inhabited by autochthonous South-Italians. In Ginestra/Zhurë, the number of traditional natural remedies (mainly derived from local medicinal plants) was only half of that in the local folk pharmacopoeia quoted in Castelmezzano. However, ritual magic-healing practices still play a central role among the Albanians in Ginestra/Zhurë, while they do not in Castelmezzano. Reasons for this shift, as well as components that have affected cultural adaptation phenomena and transitions among the Albanians are discussed.

京都大学 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(理学) / 甲第24875号 / 理博第4985号 / 新制||理||1712(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院理学研究科生物科学専攻 / (主査)准教授 MacIntosh Andrew, 教授 岡本 宗裕, 教授 明里 宏文 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Science / Kyoto University / DFAM

Master of Science / Department of Agricultural Economics / Xianghong Li / Hikaru H. Peterson / The organic food market in the United States expanded rapidly at annual rates between 12% and 21% from 1997 to 2008, yet the adoption rate of organic farming remained stagnant. Industry sources suggest that the degree of outsourcing organic inputs has been increasing during the most recent years. Organic foods are available at traditional supermarkets and mass merchandisers. Many retailers now offer organic food products in their private labels. This study focuses on organic soymilk, which illustrates these recent trends. China, a major low income country which supplies organic agricultural ingredients to the U.S. , has raised food safety concerns fueled by recent incidents. Organic foods have been marketed in China as eco-products in an effort to promote safer foods to meet domestic needs. While organic soybean is one of China’s primary organic exports, China has been the leading importer of conventional soybeans with U.S. as its largest source, but most U.S. production is transgenic. China has a labeling policy on GM (genetically modified) products, which has been more tightly enforced in recent years. This thesis examines U.S. and Chinese consumers’ valuations of attributes of processed organic products, with an emphasis on eliciting their preferences of organic ingredients from different origins, in the case of soymilk. A survey was designed for each country. The U.S. survey was administered online nationwide. An enumerated survey was administered at three types of food retail channels in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou in China. Respectively, 316 and 300 responses were collected from the U.S. and China. Choice experiment was used to elicit consumer values for various attributes of soymilk in both markets. The results show that consumers in both countries are willing to pay premiums for processed foods such as soymilk with organic and non-GMO ingredients. The premium for organic soybeans is significantly higher than that for non-GMO beans. The results also indicate that U.S. consumers hold strong preferences for organic soymilk produced with domestically produced soybeans. In terms of brand preferences, U.S. respondents are willing to pay more for national brands relative to store brands, with taste as a major differentiating factor. In contrast, Chinese consumers’ valuations depend greatly on nationalities of certifying agencies. U.S. certified organic product was perceived higher than EU or Chinese certified organic products, but Chinese-certified non-GMO products were preferred over those certified by U.S. agencies. Chinese consumers’ values varied by cities and retail types where respondents were surveyed.