In this thesis I question whether social phenomena exist. Since social groups are perhaps the most widely recognised category of social phenomena, I focus my discussion on social groups. First I elucidate our common-sense intuitions about social groups. Thereafter, I distinguish between two problems: specifying the relation among the members of a social group (the individual-individual problem), and specifying the relation between social groups and their members (the social-individual problem). I argue that the individual-individual and social-individual problems comprise the core concerns of social ontology, at least insofar as social ontology is applied to social groups. I then examine a number of possible solutions to the individual-individual problem, and argue that none of these positions convincingly captures our common-sense intuitions about social groups. I divide these solutions into Objectivist and Subjectivist accounts. Objectivist accounts of social groups exclude reference to the reflexive mental states of the individuals underlying the group, and focus instead on the patterns of interactions among group members, observable from a non-member’s perspective. I argue that Objectivist accounts, including Elster’s transactional account, the organic account, and the teleological account of social groups, are unable to capture adequately the distinction between a mere aggregate and a social group because they exclude reference to reflexive mental states, rendering the accounts vulnerable to a number of counterexamples. By contrast, Subjectivist positions, including Sartre’s account, Gilbert’s plural subject theory, and Searle’s constructionism, hold that reflexive mental states provide the principle that unifies a collection of individuals into a social group. Subjectivists, however, are unable to account for the importance of the history of social phenomena. Thereafter I consider affirmative solutions to the social-individual problem, or positions that hold that social groups exist. These positions are divided into non-reductive and reductive accounts. Non-reductive accounts, including Social Dualism and Non-Reductive Individualism, hold that social groups are logically or conceptually distinct from the individuals that comprise them. Social Dualists posit that social groups and their members are distinct entities, while Non-Reductive Individualists hold that social properties are distinct from individualistic properties. I argue that Social Dualism problematically reifies the social, while Non-Reductive Individualism is unable to maintain the dependence of the social on the individual without collapsing into a reductive account. Reductionists hold that social groups are identical with their members, or with the intra-relations among their members. Logical Individualists hold that this identity is conceptual: the concept of a social group is the concept of a collection of individuals. Type Individualists claims that types of social groups are identical with types of members (or types of member intra-relations). And Social Functionalists hold that social groups are just phenomena with a certain function, and those functional phenomena are in turn instantiated by individuals. I argue that none of the reductive accounts are successful, however: Logical Individualism cannot account for the holism of the social, Type Individualism faces the problem of multiple realisation, and Social Functionalists cannot adequately individuate groups diachronically. Finally, I tentatively support an alternative, negative solution to the individual-individual and social-individual problems: Eliminative Individualism. Eliminative Individualism is the position that social phenomena do not exist, that Folk Sociology is a radically false and misleading theory, and that social terms have no referent. I discuss a number of strategies for eliminating social phenomena, ultimately providing a psychological and neurological explanation that I argue might be used to explain away the appearance of social groups. That is, I make a case for the possibility that we can explain away beliefs in social groups the way we explain away paranormal, or errant religious beliefs. Finally, I argue that “thick” social phenomena, such as the wisdom of the crowds and the unintended consequences of intended action, may be explained using reason-based, statistical and possibly network-based explanations. I conclude that Eliminative Individualism, although it faces certain challenges, is worthy of serious attention as a contender to affirmative social ontologies in the literature.

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Public Health. Johannesburg, June 2017 / Introduction South Africa is grappling with the challenge of providing lifelong treatment, care and support to young people living with HIV (YPLHIV). The 2012 HIV Prevalence, Incidence and Behaviour Survey placed HIV prevalence among young people aged 15-24 at 7.1% (Shisana et al. 2014). Concerns abound around young people, and centre around low testing rates in this age group (Shisana 2014), their propensity for risky behaviours such as unprotected sex, age disparate relationships (Shisana et al. 2014) and high loss to follow up of ART-eligible youth (Cornell et al. 2010, Nglazi et al. 2012; Wang 2011). In the Western Cape province where HIV prevalence is 4.4% (Shisana et al. 2014) Clinic X provides integrated adolescent and youth-friendly health services including HIV counseling and testing, sexual and reproductive health, ART and other services for adolescents and youth aged 12-25 years. Services include facilitator-led support group meetings and private WhatsApp and Facebook groups for HIV-positive youth (van Cutsem et al. 2014). The aim of the study was to explore how social support is experienced by HIV positive young people from Clinic X who participate in support groups at the clinic, on WhatsApp and Facebook and to understand how support group membership is perceived to impact their HIV-related behaviours, if at all, during 2015 and 2016. The specific objectives were to (1) identify dimensions of social support experienced by YPLHIV, aged 18-25, in clinicbased and online support groups at Clinic X; (2) explore perceived social cohesion among YPLHIV aged 18-25 who participate in online support groups compared to those who only participate in clinic-based support groups and (3) explore perceptions of HIV positive young people at Clinic X in Khayelitsha regarding the influence of support groups on their behaviour during 2015 and 2016. Methods A cross-sectional exploratory qualitative study was conducted, namely focus group discussions (FGDs) and in-depth interviews (IDIs). Ethical clearance was obtained from the Human Research Ethics Committee (Medical) of the University of the Witwatersrand in October 2015. The researcher collected data for the study during December 2015 and November 2016 at Clinic X, which is one of two youth clinics in the Khayelitsha Health District of the Western Cape Metro Region. Participants were purposively sampled for the FGD component of the study from the population of young people aged 18-25 years old who attended support group meetings at Clinic X. The researcher purposively sampled interviewees for the IDIs from participants identified during the FGDs. Male and female individuals aged 18 to 25 years old who had been diagnosed HIV-positive, were enrolled in pre-ART or ART care at Clinic X Youth clinic and were participating in a youth club were included. Two FGDs were held, one for users of the online platforms and another for participants in face-to-face youth clubs meetings only. Twenty participants in total were included in the FGDs. Another nine in depth interviews were held with participants purposively sampled from the FGDs. Thematic analysis was used to analyze all data, which were recorded electronically, professionally transcribed and coded using MaxQDA. Key themes from data analysis included types of social support experienced, sense of belonging, desire to remain in the support groups and susceptibility to peer influence. Inductive themes included HIV-related behaviours, barriers to use of online platforms and sources of social support. Results Exploring the dimensions of social support revealed that peers within the youth clubs experienced emotional and informational support during youth club meetings as well as online. Emotional support was underpinned by the youth’s positive affect for each other based on shared experiences and the resultant feelings of being understood by their peers. The youth also received emotional and instrumental support from various other sources: health workers, family, and intimate partners as well as friends. The youth opened up about barriers to their seeking or accepting support from family or online as well as their perceptions about the consequences of the attitudes of individuals in their lives and community members about HIV. Participants’ perceptions about various indicators of social cohesion within the group showed that, while there was a sense of belonging, there were also limits in the extent to which youth felt susceptible to influence from peers in the youth clubs. Youth expressed a desire to remain in face-to-face youth clubs but were ambivalent about continued participation in the virtual clubs. Findings on the third objective revealed that the youth felt that the youth clubs had improved their knowledge and they were confident to maintain health-protecting behaviours. Seeing other youth looking healthy and overcoming challenges also motivated the youth. The behavioural intentions of YPLHIV were underpinned by gendered motivations for maintaining health, with young women being especially motivated by the desire for motherhood. Discussion To the body of evidence, this study contributes a qualitative understanding of how young people living with HIV experience social support online, showing that the dimensions of social support experienced are the same as those of participants of online health forums for other chronic conditions, namely information and emotional support (Gaysyknsky et al. 2014). Further, the study shows that for YPLHIV, online support groups may act as a barrier to the exchange of instrumental support, which research (Atukunda 2017) identifies as a salient need in this context. In seeking to understand why there may be disjuncture between the intention of pre-ART YPLHIV in the study to remain in care and the actual retention reported in numerous studies, the chapter proposes that social comparison, structural determinants and low risk perception may play a role. The major limitations of the study are the short time of engagement and exclusion of adolescents below 18 years of age who access services at the youth clinic. Conclusion and recommendations In conclusion, online peer groups foster peer support among YPLHIV, with implications on their emotional health. Still, more needs to be done to change perceptions about the use of online platforms for social support, design community-focused programmes to address gaps in support and reduce the financial burden on young people using mobile phones for health. / MT2017

A logarithmic signature (LS) for a nite group G is an ordered tuple = [A1;A2; : : : ;An] of subsets Ai of G, such that every element g 2 G can be expressed uniquely as a product g = a1a2 : : : ; an, where ai 2 Ai. Logarithmic signatures were dened by Magliveras in the late 1970's for arbitrary nite groups in the context of cryptography. They were also studied for abelian groups by Hajos in the 1930's. The length of an LS is defined to be `() = Pn i=1 jAij. It can be easily seen that for a group G of order Qk j=1 pj mj , the length of any LS for G satises `() Pk j=1mjpj . An LS for which this lower bound is achieved is called a minimal logarithmic signature (MLS). The MLS conjecture states that every finite simple group has an MLS. If the conjecture is true then every finite group will have an MLS. The conjecture was shown to be true by a number of researchers for a few classes of finite simple groups. However, the problem is still wide open. This dissertation addresses the MLS conjecture for the classical simple groups. In particular, it is shown that MLS's exist for the symplectic groups Sp2n(q), the orthogonal groups O 2n(q0) and the corresponding simple groups PSp2n(q) and 2n(q0) for all n 2 N, prime power q and even prime power q0. The existence of an MLS is also shown for all unitary groups GUn(q) for all odd n and q = 2s under the assumption that an MLS exists for GUn 1(q). The methods used are very general and algorithmic in nature and may be useful for studying all nite simple groups of Lie type and possibly also the sporadic groups. The blocks of logarithmic signatures constructed in this dissertation have cyclic structure and provide a sort of cyclic decomposition for these classical groups. / by Nikhil Singhi. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2011. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2011. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

The minimal logarithmic signature conjecture states that in any finite simple group there are subsets Ai, 1 i s such that the size jAij of each Ai is a prime or 4 and each element of the group has a unique expression as a product Qs i=1 ai of elements ai 2 Ai. Logarithmic signatures have been used in the construction of several cryptographic primitives since the late 1970's [3, 15, 17, 19, 16]. The conjecture is shown to be true for various families of simple groups including cyclic groups, An, PSLn(q) when gcd(n; q 1) is 1, 4 or a prime and several sporadic groups [10, 9, 12, 14, 18]. This dissertation is devoted to proving that the conjecture is true for a large class of simple groups of Lie type called classical groups. The methods developed use the structure of these groups as isometry groups of bilinear or quadratic forms. A large part of the construction is also based on the Bruhat and Levi decompositions of parabolic subgroups of these groups. In this dissertation the conjecture is shown to be true for the following families of simple groups: the projective special linear groups PSLn(q), the projective symplectic groups PSp2n(q) for all n and q a prime power, and the projective orthogonal groups of positive type + 2n(q) for all n and q an even prime power. During the process, the existence of minimal logarithmic signatures (MLS's) is also proven for the linear groups: GLn(q), PGLn(q), SLn(q), the symplectic groups: Sp2n(q) for all n and q a prime power, and for the orthogonal groups of plus type O+ 2n(q) for all n and q an even prime power. The constructions in most of these cases provide cyclic MLS's. Using the relationship between nite groups of Lie type and groups with a split BN-pair, it is also shown that every nite group of Lie type can be expressed as a disjoint union of sets, each of which has an MLS. / by NIdhi Singhi. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2011. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2011. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Reis, E. R. S. (2013). Estudo de Simetria e seu ensino no nível fundamental e médio. Dissertação de Mestrado, Instituto de Ciências Matemáticas e de Computação. Universidade de São Paulo, São Carlos. Esse trabalho tem por objetivo estudar Teoria dos Grupos focando nos Grupos de Simetrias, destacar a importância desse estudo e analisar estratégias para ensinar o conceito de simetria de forma inteligível para os alunos do ensino fundamental II e ensino médio / Reis, E. R. S. (2013).Study of Symmetry and its teaching in elementary and high school. MSc Thesis, Institute of Mathematics and Computer. University of São Paulo, São Carlos. The pourpose of this work is to study Group Theory focusing Groups of Symmetries, to reiterate the importance of this study and launch strategies for teaching the concept of simetry in an intelligible form for elementary and high school students

Yuk-Fai Au. / Running title: Group process control effects. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1991. / Bibliography: leaves 45-50. / Acknow1edgements --- p.2 / Abstract --- p.3 / Introduction --- p.4 / Method --- p.15 / Results --- p.23 / Discussion --- p.35 / References --- p.45 / Tables --- p.51 / Footnotes --- p.57 / Figure --- p.58 / Appendices --- p.59

by To Tze-ming. / Bibliography: leaves 92-93 / Thesis (M.Ph.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1985

Ivan Timothy Houghton. / Thesis (M.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 237-290). / Table of Contents --- p.5 / Signed Statement --- p.8 / List of Illustrations --- p.9 / List of Tables --- p.13 / Abstract --- p.16 / Publications and Presentations Resulting from the Work of the Thesis --- p.21 / Section I Introduction and Methods / Chapter Chapter1 --- Thesis Statement and Problem --- p.30 / Hypothesis and Objective of Thesis --- p.30 / Objectives --- p.30 / Review of Literature --- p.30 / Studies undertaken --- p.47 / Chapter Chapter2 --- Methods --- p.51 / Ethical Approval --- p.53 / Clinical Studies --- p.51 / Laboratory Studies --- p.53 / Equipment --- p.56 / Assays --- p.60 / Section II Intubation / Chapter Chapter3 --- Sympathoadrenal Response to Intubation --- p.65 / Chapter Chapter4 --- Suxamethonium Myalgia --- p.81 / Chapter Chapter5 --- An Antidepolarising Muscle Relaxant for Intubation --- p.106 / Section III Use of Opioids / Chapter Chapter6 --- Pethidine Pharmacokinetics --- p.126 / Chapter Chapter7 --- Ventilatory Response to Carbon Dioxide with Morphine --- p.151 / Chapter Chapter8 --- Alfentanil Supplementation --- p.166 / Chapter Chapter9 --- Response to Pethidine and Nalbuphine Analgesia --- p.184 / Section IV Use of Halothane / Chapter Chapter10 --- Determination of Minimum Alveolar Concentration of Halothane .。 --- p.203 / Annexure --- p.213 / Section V Summary and Conclusions / Chapter Chapter11 --- Summary --- p.217 / Conclusions --- p.232 / Suggestions for further research --- p.235 / "Section VI References, Author Index and Appendices" / References --- p.237 / Author Index --- p.291 / Appendices / Chapter i. --- Acknowledgements --- p.315 / Chapter ii --- Personal Work --- p.318 / Chapter iii --- Glossary of Terms --- p.320 / Chapter iv --- Ethical Committee Approval Certificates --- p.322 / Chapter v. --- Consent forms --- p.341 / Addendum / Individual Patient Data Tables / Statistical Data Tables / Table of Contents --- p.365 / Section II Intubation / Chapter Chapter 3 --- Sympathoadrenal Response to Intubation / Individual patient data table --- p.367 / Statistical data tables --- p.377 / Chapter Chapter 4 --- Suxamethonium Myalgia / Individual patient data table --- p.386 / Statistical data tables --- p.415 / Chapter Chapter 5 --- An Antidepolarising Muscle Relaxant for Intubation / Individual patient data table --- p.419 / Statistical data tables --- p.442 / Section III Use of Opioids / Chapter Chapter 6 --- Pethidine Pharmacokinetics / Individual patient data table I --- p.443 / Individual patient data table II --- p.460 / Individual patient data table III --- p.464 / Statistical data tables --- p.478 / Chapter Chapter 7 --- Ventilatory Response to Carbon Dioxide with Morphine / Indivdual patient data table --- p.483 / Statistical data tables --- p.525 / Chapter Chapter 9 --- Response to Pethidine and Nalbuphine Analgesia / Individual patient data table --- p.527 / Section IV Use of Halothane / Chapter Chapter 10 --- Determination of Minimum Alveolar Concentration of Halothane / Individual patient data table --- p.544 / Statistical data tables --- p.553 / Section V Summary and Conclusions / Chapter Chapter 11 --- Aggregated Data / Anthropometric data / Individual patient data table --- p.554 / Biochemical data / Individual patient data table --- p.573 / Cardiovascular data / Individual patient data table --- p.577 / Statistical Table --- p.596

by Xiao-Qing Jin. / Thesis (M.Ph.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1986 / Bibliography: leaves 47-48

Hung Cheung Yan. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong. / Bibliography: leaves 28-29.