This study examines notions of the professional criminal and career criminality in Turkey. Bourdieuian dispositional theory of action and Lacanian psychoanalytically-inflected discourse theory are together employed to understand and explain how one becomes, and continues to be, a professional criminal. The study presents the data from an offender-based ethnography in Ankara, the capital. The research pays special attention to the role of affects in the formation of criminal habitus, thus squarely placing the process of becoming a professional criminal within a process of symbolic identification with available criminal social types. The research reveals that the formation of bodily and mental criminal dispositions of younger, lower-class subaltern offenders can never be considered separately from the implication of their affective investments in the model-image of perceived gayrımeşhur [infamous criminal] 'big brothers' in the street. Moreover, it explains the appeal of a career in crime using the psychoanalytical notion of jouissance (enjoyment): the unconscious pleasure obtained from pursuing and enacting a criminal lifestyle. The unequal distribution of volume and structure of criminal capital among agents is argued to generate, particularly in the drug field, a strategic mutuality between perceived gayrımeşhur big brothers and younger generations who identify with the former. The affectively-constructed strategic proximity between generations transmits the understanding of crime as work from one generation to the next. The other finding of the study is that the modus operandi of professional burglary is put into practice within a structured division of labour in which each individual criminal capital is used collectively to overcome deterrents and effect the intended result: cash and jewellery. This research represents an original contribution to the literature of sociology and criminology by its theoretical neologism in explaining the formation of professional criminal subjectivity and its practice, and also by ethnographically exploring the patterns of crime and criminality in the socio-cultural context of Turkey.

In A Theory of Justice (1971) John Rawls attempted to solve the problem of distributive justice by combining self-interest, ignorance and risk-aversion. He argued that if self-interested persons in a situation of uncertainty imposed by a veil of ignorance were choosing principles for the basic structure of society, then they would be risk-adverse and choose two principles – The Principle of Equal Liberty and the Difference Principle. Critics have argued against this risk-adverse element of Rawls’ theory but those critics as well as Rawls made certain presuppositions about risk-aversion, risk-taking and gambling. This thesis also examines the risk-aversion in Rawls’ theory but addresses the previous shortfall by exploring the issue of risk and gambling in two interrelated ways. It applies a Foucauldian approach to the history of risk and gambling in order to contextualise the current views and then investigates the contemporary meaning by drawing on research leading up to the UK Gambling Act 2005. Drawing on these findings it argues that not only might risk-taking occur in the original position but that different types of participants could show different degrees of risk-taking behaviour. By exploring the theoretical debates between essentialism and anti-essentialism, it further argues that it is unlikely that the veil of ignorance would be able to screen out those differences. It then employs theories of identity and difference in the work of Heidegger, Deleuze and Lyotard in an attempt to overcome that weakness in Rawls’ theory but finds that this may not be possible. After highlighting a connection between impartiality and gambling, it concludes, in contrast to Rawls, that risk-taking rather than risk-aversion lies at the heart of social justice. The implication of this reversal is that it may have an impact on policy-decisions in other areas of the justice system.

Energy consumption due to domestic heating is a major contributor to climate change. Kempton (1986) proposed that ‘Mental Models’ of thermostat controls could be linked to energy wasting behaviour. Mental models can be thought of as ‘pictures in the mind’ that help users understand and operate systems. This thesis explored if changes to the heating interface design could influence the mental model held, to promote appropriate behaviour with heating controls. Consideration of bias is essential when undertaking research into mental models. The ‘Tree-Rings’ framework was developed to address this, resulting in the creation of the ‘Quick Association Check’ (QuACK); a method for capturing and analysing mental models and behaviour related to heating controls. QuACk was initially applied to a case study of 6 householders. This revealed a ‘systems level’ approach was necessary to understand behaviour strategies, in contrast to Kempton’s single device focus. Differences in mental models explained differences in self-reported behaviour. Misunderstandings of how heating controls worked together and the influence of thermodynamics on boiler activation, explained variations in consumption between households. Norman’s (1983) ‘7 stages of activity’ was used to produce a design specification for a ‘control panel’ style heating interface. This focused on correcting key misunderstandings in householders’ mental models, that hindered appropriate behaviour. A home heating simulation was developed to allow the design to be compared with a typical presentation of heating controls. The new interface significantly improved the appropriateness of users’ mental models at the system and device levels. More appropriate behaviour was found with specific controls and the duration of goal achievement was significantly increased. These findings have implications for strategies to reduce domestic consumption through behaviour change, and provide insights that can be used to improve the design of home heating interfaces.

Retweets are an important mechanism for the propagation of information on the Twitter social media platform. However, many retweets do not use the offcial retweet mechanism, or even community established conventions, and these "dark retweets" are not accounted for in many existing analyses. In this thesis, a typology of 19 different tweet propagation types is presented, based on seven characteristics: whether it is proprietary, the mechanism used, whether it is created by followers or non-followers, whether it mentions other users, if it is explicitly propagating another tweet, if it links to an original tweet, and the audience that it is pushed to. Based on this typology and two retweetability confidence factors, the degrees of a retweet's "darkness" can be determined. This typology was evaluated over two datasets: a random sample of 27,146 tweets, and a URL drill-down dataset of 262,517 tweets. It was found that dark retweets amounted to 20.8% of the random sample, however the behaviour of dark retweets is not uniform. The existence of supervisible and superdark URLs skew the average proportion of dark retweets in a dataset. Dark retweet behaviour was explored further by examining the average reach of retweet actions and identifying content domains in which dark retweets seem more prevalent. It was found that 1) the average reach of a dark retweet action (3,614 users per retweet) was found to be just over double the average reach of a visible retweet action (1,675 users per retweet), and 2) dark retweets were more frequently used in spreading social media (41% of retweets) and spam (40.6%) URLs, whilst they were least prevalent in basic information domains such as music (8.5%), photos (5%) and videos (3.9%). It was also found that once the supervisible and superdark URLs were discarded from the analysis, the proportion of dark retweets decreased from 20.8% to 12%, whilst visible retweets increased from 79.2% to 88%. This research contributes a 19-type tweet propagation typology and the findings that dark retweets exist, but their behaviour varies depending on the retweeter and URL content domain.

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This research explores the potential of utilising social Web data as a source of contextual information for searching and information retrieval tasks. While using a semantic and ontological approach to do so, it works towards a support system for providing adaptive and personalised recommendations for Cultural Heritage Resources. Most knowledge systems nowadays support an impressive amount of information and in case of Web based systems the size is ever growing. Among other difficulties faced by these systems is the problem of overwhelming the user with a vast amount of unrequired data, often referred to as information overload. The problem is elevated with the ever increasing issues of time constraint and extensive use of handheld devices. Use of context is a possible way out of this situation. To provide a more robust approach to context gathering we propose the use of Social Web technologies alongside the Semantic Web. As the social Web is used the most amongst today’s Web users, it can provide better understanding about a user’s interests and intentions. The proposed system gathers information about users from their social Web identities and enriches it with ontological knowledge and interlinks this mapped data with LOD resources online e.g., DBpedia. Thus, designing an interest model for the user can serve as a good source of contextual knowledge. This work bridges the gap between the user and search by analysing the virtual existence of a user and making interesting recommendations accordingly. i This work will open a way for the vast amount of structured data on Cultural Heritage to be exposed to the users of social networks, according to their tastes and likings.

This study is an investigation into the backgrounds of senior managers and leaders in the Further Education (FE) sector in England. In particular, the research aims to establish whether there is a link between the educational, professional or experiential background of a leader and the style of leadership that they perceive they display. There is a paucity of research that has been carried out on the subject of leadership in the further education arena. This thesis focuses on three approaches to leadership, transformational, distributed and managerial, which, it is argued, are the most relevant in the FE sector. The thesis also seeks to explore other factors that have an influence on the way in which FE principals lead. The research is carried out using a mixed method approach. An internet survey and semi-structured interviews are used as the data gathering tools. The study suggests that there are many influences on the way in which FE principals lead which include their background in addition to college culture and the context in which the college operates.

This dissertation effects a complete re-orientation of economic theory. It shows how the economic cannot be analysed separately from the political and the social, and lays the foundation for an integrated political economy. The work examines the philosophical difficulties faced by economists, and re-draws the history of economic thought as a response to methodological dilemmas. The traditional History of Economics textbooks re-write the history in terms of the contemporary paradigm. This dissertation, by contrast, shows how the philosophical debates have shaped the trajectory of economics, and how the orientations of the schools undergo major changes so as to attempt to deal with the fundamental dilemmas of a 'policy science’. It brings out the 'hidden history’ of economics, and shows both how laissez-faire can only be defended by dropping any notion of economic 'science', and how economic theory has an implied political theory. It then considers the debate over political economic theory and the consequences for economic organisation and for environmental disruption.

This thesis is an ethnographic study of the stepfamily that was conducted between May 1985 and July 1986. The main methods of social investigation were participant observation, unstructured interviews and documentary evidence. The study examines the role of myth and its importance in the stepfamily from the view point of the stepparent. Special consideration has been given to consider the gender implications of step-parenthood and remarriage and the place of myth in the structuring of gender and stepfamily experiences. An opening chapter surveys the theoretical background to the study. Chapter Two introduces the families who took part in the study and contextualises their concerns. There are further chapters which examine the myth of the wicked stepmother, the importance of reciprocity in stepparent-stepchild relationships, the gender experience of second marriage and myth construction in the stepfamily. Chapter Seven serves as a summary and concludes that myth has a dual function in stepfamily life. Specifically, myths impose constraints on the stepmother's freedom of action which is not evidenced for stepfathers. Nevertheless, through the construction of myths within the stepfamily, myths serve a legitimating role for both stepparents which form the basis of step-parental perception. Appendices A and B are concerned with the research process and, given the personal nature of the research to the researcher, stand as an integral part of the thesis. In Appendix A two issues are considered. The importance of biography in the research process and the methods employed. Appendix B sets out the aides memoires used for unstructured interviews. Finally, Appendix C contains stepfamily trees and serves as a presentation device to indicate the various stepfamily relationships.

This thesis is a text-based analysis of conceptions of the intellectual in relation to the political sphere. The specific instances studied relate, positively and negatively, to the socialist tradition in politics and culture. They are drawn from a variety of academic disciplinary contexts and also from the contexts of political organisations and social movements. One of the principal dilemmas faced by the intellectual in this century, as this thesis sets out to make clear, has been that of trying to bridge the divide between these two spheres. This investigation is centred upon statements made by intellectuals reflecting upon the typical role or function of the intellectual within society and politics. My contention is that such self-reflection is a necessary condition of the intellectual's coming into being. Intellectuals are realised in specific identities, in a process of self-identification. The force of intellectual practice is dependent upon elements of personal commitment, moral or political, and the enactment of an experiential dimension. But, at the same time, as a practice that has a transcendent orientation, the intellectual seeks to go beyond the subjective in pursuit of the objective, the extra-personal, the unsituated. My thesis offers itself as an identification of a tradition, as the relation of a narrative of the intellectual, which also recognises its own particularity. As such, it is not a work of synthesis, but a reflexive narrative. Narrative is an appropriate concept with regards to the intellectual; it may thus be seen as a creative process drawing upon particular events and characters. Such a view, involving both commitment to and distance from the intellectual, is not common within prevailing accounts, which have tended to be either sociological-objective or normative-subjective. I have tried to see the intellectual as reflexively situated between these positions, as between an interested identity and disinterested practice, and not just in a purely “objective" fashion but acknowledging my own involvement within such a view.