A changing perception based on the appreciation for information in our era allows a broader idea and different understanding of life as a system driven by the flow of information. Simultaneously, our understanding of 'the' urban was broadened. It enabled us to perceive urban structures as living organisms beyond their physical manifestation and separated from human control. Like species, our cities are great products of evolutionary forces and contain invaluable information worth preserving.When writing about urban spaces, urban is understood as a system which is constituted not so much by built forms and infrastructures, but as a heterogeneous field that is constituted by intervention and lines of forces and action. These lines form the coordinates of an urban topology that is not based on the human body and its movements in space alone, but also on relational acts and events within the urban system. These relational acts can be economic, political, technological or tectonic processes, as well as acts of communication. The urban is therefore quite different from the physically defined spaces of events and movements.The focal point of this paper is to explore the relationship between the spaces of movement, the spaces of events and the relational systemic 'spaces'. It will be attempted to identify fundamental processes behind urban design. Rules are derived from connective principles in complexity theory, systems theory, pattern recognition, and artificial intelligence. / Department of Architecture

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The early 1920s are generally described as a period of transition for American society. Many forces of change collided to create an unsettled atmosphere that appeared to threaten traditional American ideas and values. After World War I, the United States fostered a climate of anti-Catholicism and nativism out of fear that foreign ideas spelled the demise of traditional American values. These ideas were certainly not new to American culture as anti-Catholic sentiments figured prominently throughout the founding of the nation. During the early 1920s, however, a resurrected Ku Klux Klan promoted itself as the protector of American institutions. It won recruits with an identity as a secret society for white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant citizens. The organization also exploited the political issues of the day to ingratiate itself within communities across the nation.

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This study seeks to analyze the Turkish nation-building process during the early Republican period (1920-1938). In doing this, the substantive focus will be on three main dimensions --language, education, and citizenship -- with particular emphasis on the rhetoric and actions of the political elite. / By looking at language, education, and citizenship policies, and their formulations, the present analysis will make three main propositions: First, and in contrast to the existing literature on nations and nation-building, it will be demonstrated that the process of Turkish nation-building was neither a smooth nor an automatic process. Moreover, during the period under analysis, there were competing definitions of nationhood which were taken up, and discussed by the political elite. The final conceptualization of nationhood --which took an assimilationist form with an ethnic understanding attached to it -- was formed over time. At times, the process was wrought with tensions as illustrated by the heated debates among the political elite. / Second, the present analysis will seek to bring together two different ways of looking at nation formation. More specifically, the analysis will attempt to bridge the gap between those works which only underline the role of ideas in the formation of nations, and those which emphasize the role of structural forces. By paying attention to the "voices" (and actions) of the political elite, this study will demonstrate that it is not only ideas, nor is it only structural forces that matter. Rather, the crystallization of the contents of Turkish nationhood illustrates the interplay of ideological as well as geopolitical and political forces. / Third, a detailed analysis of the trajectory of Turkish nation-building and the formulation of Turkish nationhood reveals the complexity of this process. The existing literature on Turkey tends to treat the Kemalist era as an undifferentiated whole. The present work will remain critical to such an outlook. Instead, and by looking at the shifting conceptualizations of nationhood, it will seek to demonstrate the complexity and contingent nature of the Turkish nation-building process.

Over the past 60 years, India has undergone immense political, economic, and social changes, which have led to its emergence as a global economic power and regional military power. During this period, the population has surged, growing from 233 million to 1.2 billion people, making India the second most populous nation in the world. In the course of this change, there have been key indicators of medical progress, such as rising life expectancy and a falling infant mortality rate. Another striking indicator, specifically in the area of medical technology, is the fact that India in 2006 was a net exporter of HIV medications to dozens of countries around the globe, earning a reputation as the pharmacist of the developing world. Although many books and papers have been written about the emergence of the country's economy and military, little has been written on how it has been able to achieve its leadership in medical technology. This thesis, 'A History of Medical Technology in Postcolonial India: 1947-1991', is the first major study examining the development of medical technology in India in the period directly following colonial rule. The period covered in this research is crucial because it highlights the evolution and impact of medical technology in postcolonial India, leading up to, but excluding, the free-market reforms enacted by the Indian government in 1991. This thesis will also illustrate the impact diffusion had on the evolution of medical technology. Most importantly, this thesis introduces a new concept appropriate to understanding India's trajectory in this period: the medical technology complex. It will be shown that this complex consists of different groups working toward an aligned objective. It is not the point of this thesis to characterize the medical technology complex in a positive light or a negative one. Its primary concern is to demonstrate through historical evidence that this construct grew throughout the twentieth century and still exists today.

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