This study was undertaken with the idea of bringing together information concerning some of the most important Kentuckians who have made contributions to the biological sciences. In order that we may better understand and appreciate the work done by these men, it was thought best to give a brief discussion of the major periods in the history of biological development. An attempt will be made to interpret the contributions of the men discussed, according to the period in which they lived. Only a sufficient number of men are discussed in each epoch to give a correct picture of the trends of that period.

This thesis presents an account of a prominent eighteenth-century European naturalist, Peter Pallas (1741-1811), in the setting to which he contributed his scientific talents—the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. A complete outline of Pallas' life is presented for purposes of continuity, but the heart of the thesis is presented in chapters four and five, which combined, relate the major features of Pallas' career in Russia. These two chapters are set against pertinent background material, most of which is involved with the institution itself which supported Pallas. The St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences is surveyed in its origin and development in the eighteenth century and material is presented which will outline the ups and downs of the development of academic life in Russia as well as the general milieu in which Pallas fitted. This milieu, it has been concluded, was one of lively and relatively unfettered advance in the development of science in Russia, to which Pallas contributed a great deal of stimulus by way of his widely known and respected accomplishments. The focal point of Pallas' career is represented by his Siberian expedition of 1768-1774, a momentous six-year scientific enterprise to which a central part of the research has been directed. The account of the Pallas Expedition presented here is entirely original, utilizing chiefly his own travel account and the Proceedings (Protokoly) of the Academy, from which source, in the absence of archival materials, can be gained the general content of Pallas' communications to the Academy during his absence. To add perspective, the Pallas Expedition has been set against the historical and contemporary background of Russian scientific exploration in the eighteenth century. An appendix has also been included which lists the Russian-sponsored eighteenth-century scientific expeditions. The follow-up to Pallas' expedition--the remainder of his career in St. Petersburg--is equally a central part of the study. As an academician in St. Petersburg from 1774 to 1793, Pallas was a luminary of European natural science as well as a pillar of scientific achievement in Russia. In historical terms and seen against the background of the Academy of which he was a part, Pallas’ scholarly contributions in Russia have been outlined, most of which can be explained as a consequence of his expedition. A wide selection of available secondary material has been utilized to explain Pallas’ academic career supplemented by some original research supplemented by some original research (chiefly from the Academy Proceedings) and the opportunity I have had to see and scan most of his major publications pertaining to zoology and botany, the major fields to which he contributed. Although of German background, Pallas spent most of his adult life in Russia (1767-1810). His career there forms one of the highlights of foreign scientific expeditionary achievement during the century that Russia relied almost exclusively on foreigners to establish the serious beginnings of both. His contributions--expeditionary and academically in the realm of biology--for obvious reasons are more closely connected to the Russian arena; perhaps for that reason he has failed to attract deserved notice alongside the eighteenth-century European naturalists who are now more popularly known. This thesis attempts no more than to account historically for the career of Peter Simon Pallas in Russia and to present his remarkable accomplishments. A categorized, partially annotated bibliography is appended, preceded by a bibliographic explanation.

This study discusses the social space occupied by tuberculosis during the late eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth century, as well as its reciprocal impact on both the individual and the social body. It focuses on the radical changes in the perception of the disease between 1780 and 1850 and how they fit with the shifting concepts of disease causation. These changes allowed tuberculosis to become tightly bound with contemporary concepts of beauty, which were prominent in the fashions of the day. The rise of 'civilized' nervous diseases and the elevation of sensibility were entwined with hereditary explanations of consumption to advance it as a disease signifying sophistication in the upper reaches of society. Consequently, there was an explanative split along class lines. Tuberculosis was seen as a product of vice and filth among the lower classes of society and as a sign of refinement and attractiveness among the middle and upper classes. The mythology surrounding the disease continued to draw on earlier notions that associated tuberculosis with a good and easy death, but these concepts were refashioned with the aid of evangelical Christianity, Romantic rhetoric, and sentimental doctrine. As a result of this co-mingling, consumption provided an avenue for the elevation of the respectable woman both spiritually and aesthetically. The physical manifestations of tuberculosis, its chronic nature, and the widespread belief in its incurability also contributed to linking the disease to contemporary concepts of beauty. Through a detailed analysis of social trends, medical advice, and fashionable culture---revealed in medical works, periodicals, literature, and personal papers---I reveal the intimate relationships between fashionable women's clothing, female roles, beauty, and illness in Britain in this period / acase@tulane.edu

Historians studying healing in the seventeenth century have concluded that there was no formalized medical profession in that century 1, yet by the end of the eighteenth century, a new standard caregiver of the sick had taken hold: the university-educated physician.2 This new breed was more educated, respected, and autonomous than healers of past centuries. Although the rise of the profession of medicine and the medical man has been well documented, historians have not explained why people increasingly enlisted the services of licensed practitioners. This dissertation will examine one crucial but under-analyzed aspect of illness and its treatment: the moral dimension, to argue that religious attitudes and beliefs played a vital role in society's conception of illness and the options available to alleviate suffering In early modern England, bodily health and the health of one's soul were inexorably entwined. It was therefore imperative that physicians be seen as capable of caring for both in order to be trusted with the whole health of the individual. Their ability to embrace the nexus of physical and spiritual health is what began to set the learned physician apart from all other types of healers over the course of the seventeenth century. They were able to combine the legacy of their university training with an emerging sense that their skills were ordained by God to cure disease, particularly those considered punishment for sin, in order to present themselves as protectors of a bodily health that was dependent on both physical and spiritual wellness In a society in which disease was largely interpreted in terms of moral agency, and the physical and spiritual world were so intimately connected, the responsibility of caring for the entire patient, both body and soul, was a matter of public trust. To assume such trust required the highest degree of moral authority, a trait which physicians argued was connected to being learned. Their ability to convince the public of their moral authority is what ultimately proved to be their most powerful weapon against lay and popular healers at a time when there were so many other viable options for health care 1Margaret Pelling, The Common Lot: Sickness, Medical Occupations and the Urban Poor in Early Modern England (New York: Longman, 1998), 244. Similar notions have been expressed by Roy Porter and Dorothy Porter, In Sickness and in Health: The British Experience 1650-1850 (London: Fourth Estate, 1988) and Lucinda Beier, 'In Sickness and in Health: A Seventeenth Century Family's Experience,' in Patients and Practitioners: Lay Perceptions of Medicine in Pre-Industrial Society, ed. Roy Porter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 4-5. 2The group of medical men upon which this dissertation focuses are those who were considered in the seventeenth century to be 'learned physicians,' meaning they had earned university degrees in medicine, either in England or on the Continent. Such individuals were a fairly new group in England, the product of what Harold Cook has termed the intellectual and educational changes of the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. They are not necessarily fellows, licentiates, or even extra-licentiates of the College of Physicians, as this would restrict the group to a scant number. They are, moreover, individuals who considered themselves to be medical professionals, rather than those who merely dabbled in or 'topped off' their salaries through medicine / acase@tulane.edu

Les piles à combustible, dont le principe de fonctionnement est connu depuis le milieu du XIXème siècle, permettent de produire simultanément de l’électricité, de l’eau et de la chaleur à partir de combustibles et comburants tels que l’hydrogène et l’oxygène. À la fin des années cinquante, ces générateurs électrochimiques connaissent des perfectionnements majeurs, notamment grâce aux travaux de l’Anglais Francis T. Bacon, et sont utilisés aux États-Unis par la NASA (Aeronautics and Space Administration) au sein de ses programmes spatiaux. En France, des études sont mises en place au même moment dans des laboratoires publics et privés, tels que ceux d’Alsthom, de l’Institut français du pétrole et du CNRS (Centre national de la recherche scientifique), sous l’égide des Armées et de la DGRST (Délégation générale à la recherche scientifique et technique), organisme d’État chargé de la politique de la recherche. Jusqu’au début des années quatre-vingt, des millions de francs sont ainsi investis et des centaines de chercheurs, ingénieurs et techniciens sont mobilisés pour améliorer la technique, travailler à son adaptation aux automobiles électriques, aux trains, aux sous-marins, à la construction de centrales de production industrielle d’électricité ou encore à la fourniture de solutions militaires. Alors que de nos jours les piles à combustible apparaissent en France comme des options majeures pour la transition énergétique, c’est tout l’objet de cette thèse que de retracer, restituer et analyser cette partie de leur histoire grâce à une enquête de terrain fondée sur la récolte d’archives et la réalisation d’entretiens avec des acteurs ayant participé aux recherches. Nous mettrons tout d’abord au jour les conditions socio-historiques et les dynamiques structurelles qui font que les piles à combustible deviennent un thème d’intérêt en France à la fin des années cinquante. Nous montrerons ensuite comment les études sont organisées puis réorientées dans les années soixante et soixante-dix en fonction de l’évolution du collectif de pensée et du réseau social créés autour de la technique. Enfin, nous examinerons l’ensemble des raisons politiques, économiques, scientifiques et sociales pour lesquelles ces travaux sont presque tous abandonnés au début des années quatre-vingt. / Fuel cells, which operation principle is known since the middle of the 19th century, allow to produce electricy, water and heat simultaneously from fuels and combustives like hydrogen and oxygen. At the end of the 50s, these electrochemical generators are perfected, particularly thanks to the work of Francis T. Bacon in England, and are used in the USA by NASA (Aeronautics and Space Administration) for space programs. In France at the same period, private and public laboratories as Alsthom, the IFP (French Petroleum Institute) and the CNRS (French National Center for Scientific Research) start their own studies under the supervision of the Ministry of Defense and the DGRST (General Commission for for Scientific and Technical Research), a national institution in charge of scientific research policy. Until the beginning of the 80s, millions are thus invested and hundreds of researchers, engineers and technicians are mobilized to improve fuel cells, work on their adaptation to electrical cars, trains, submarines, on the construction of fuel cell power plants or specific military equipments. Now that in France fuel cells are considered as major options for energy transition, the objective of this dissertation paper is to analyze this period of their history thanks to a field investigation based on numerous archives and interviews with stakeholders who contributed to researches. We will first expose socio-historical conditions and structural dynamics which make fuel cells become a theme of national interest at the end of the 50s. We will then show how studies are organized and reoriented in the 60s and 70s according to the evolution of the thought collective and the social network created around fuel cells. Finally we will examine all political, economic, scientific and social reasons which led to drop almost all fuel cell researches in the country at the beginning of the 80s.

O naturalista dinamarquês Peter Wilhelm Lund (1801-1880), considerado o pai da Paleontologia brasileira, professava a chamada Teoria do Catastrofismo, de Georges Cuvier. Foi para tentar comprovar esta teoria que o naturalista escavou milhares de fósseis nas cavernas de Lagoa Santa (MG) entre 1835 e 1844, quando descreveu dezenas de espécies extintas do período Pleistoceno. Durante este trabalho, Lund descobriu os esqueletos fossilizados de cerca de 30 seres humanos, que ficaram conhecidos como os Homens de Lagoa Santa. Logo após esta descoberta, o naturalista enviou suas coleções para a Dinamarca e pôs um fim nos trabalhos de campo, sem no entanto voltar ao seu país e permanecendo no Brasil até sua morte. <br />A maior questão não respondida sobre a vida de Peter Lund, e o objetivo deste trabalho, é entender porque afinal ele parou de pesquisar? O próprio Lund alegou falta de dinheiro. Mas seus biógrafos escolheram como bode espiatório o cansaço físico e intelectual após anos de trabalho ininterrupto nas cavernas. <br />A resposta, no entanto, encontra-se na coleção de cartas de Lund, arquivadas na Biblioteca Real de Copenhagen. O presente trabalho é resultado do estudo de uma pequena parte desta correspondências. Analisou-se a vida do naturalista à luz da sua relação com a família, mestres e amigos no Brasil e na Dinamarca, na esperança de identificar a razão para o término das pesquisas de um dos mais influentes cientistas do Brasil no século XIX.

<p>This thesis examines the Swedish political response to the challenges posed by gene technology, seen through the prism of governmental commissions. It discerns and analyses continuities and changes in the Swedish political conception of gene technology, over the course of two decades, 1980–2000. This is done by thematically following ideas of “risks” and “ethics” as they are represented in the inner workings and reception of three governmental commissions. The Gene-Ethics Commission (1981–1984), the Gene Technology Commission (1990–1992) and the Biotechnology Commission (1997–2000) form the empirical focal points of this analysis. The first two provided preparatory policy proposals that preceded the implementation of the Swedish gene technology laws of 1991 and 1994. The last one aimed at presenting a comprehensive Swedish biotechnology policy for the new millennium.</p><p> The study takes into account the role of governmental commissions as arenas where science and politics intersect in Swedish political life, and illuminates how this type of “boundary organisation”, placed on the border of science and politics, impinges on the understanding of the gene technology issue. The commissions have looked into the limits, dangers, possibilities and future applications of gene technology. They have been appointed to deal with the problematic task of distinguishing between what is routine and untested practices, realistic prediction and “science fiction”, what are unique problems and what are problems substantially similar to older ones, what constitutes a responsible approach as opposed to misconduct and what it means to let things “get out of hand” in contrast to being “in control”. Throughout a period of twenty years, media reports have continued to frame the challenges posed by gene technology as a task of balancing risks and benefits, walking the fine line between “frankenfoods” and “miracle drugs”. </p><p>One salient problem for the commissions to solve was that science and industry seemed to promote a technology the public opposed and resisted, at least in parts. For both politics and science to gain, or regain, public trust it needed to demonstrate that risks – be it environmental, ethical or health related ones – were under control. Under the surface, it was much more complicated than “science helping politics” to make informed and rational decisions on how to formulate a regulatory policy. Could experts be trusted to participate in policy-making in a neutral way and was it not important, in accordance with democratic norms, to involve the public? </p>

<p>The purpose of this essay is to try and bring clarity to the question, what is Chick Lit and which factors make it so popular. My thesis  endeavors to explain that it is not only the promise of light entertainment that draws the reader, but also the possibility that in an easy way they can read about existential questions such as self-development  and life -choices.</p><p>As well as mapping out Chick Lit´s specific characteristics, followed by previous research on the subject and the litterateur’s history, I have found it interesting to discuss the female characters, their personalities and life choice’s against a backdrop of existentialistic philosophy.</p><p>In my research of this form of literateur I have discovered that chick lit often deals with existential universal problems, and that in order to be entertaining these books must contain a serious element.</p>

<p>Based on 30 years of work experience in TV and film production, I have made a phenomenological analysis of my perception of meaning in work - how it arises and how it is undermined. The story starts in my experience of early professional film making in the 1980's and describes how a change to work in TV production required the development of a new professional identity. </p><p>The text also illustrates how as a female director I have managed my role in a male dominated and structured work environment. Being defined as an exception from the male norm has pushed me towards femininist reflection and the need to redefine my own work role - the generally accepted view having felt uncomfortable. </p><p>An analysis of structural change in TV and film production shows how market pressures and ways of thought have increasingly invaded cultural endeavour. Professional spheres of influence are weakened, while developments in the media are characterised by a commercialism which encroaches more and more upon artistic, spiritual and moral values. This attitude, where quality is in retreat, has transformedprogramme makers from creative originators into becoming suppliers of raw material in a factory- like process geared to produce great volume at low cost.</p><p>The aim of this essay is to show how changes in society and in TV and film making have affected my perception of my work. Structural transformation in the media has circumscribed the scope for creative play as an important source of energy and inspiration in work and it has eroded my feeling that work is personally meaningful.</p><p> </p>

<p>Knut Wicksell var en briljant ekonom som främst visade på nya tillämpningar på andras ekonomiska teorier. Med min uppsats visar jag på en koppling mellan utilitarismen och nymalthusianismen, teorier som Wicksell var en stor anhängare av, som resulterar i en ekonomisk teori som går att koppla till det som den franske filosofen och idéhistorikern Michel Foucault kallar biopolitik. Statens roll bör enligt Wicksell vara att förädla individerna; att genom politiska åtgärder förbättra de enskilda individernas livskvalitet samt deras kvalité som producerande samhällsmedborgare.</p><p>På ett praktiskt plan handlar det om att medvetandegöra individernas möjlighet till kapitalbildning och därmed ge de möjligheter att lyfta sig själv upp ur fattigdom och misär. Vägen går genom kunskap och barnbegränsning; dessa två faktorer ger individen ett större värde inom samhället eftersom han inte lika lätt går att byta ut samtidigt som det ger staten en tydlig och viktig uppgift; staten ska skydda befolkningen från smärta och orätt. Dessa syften för stat och medborgare leder, tillsammans med en ökad kunskap, till kapitalutjämning inom samhället. Men enligt Wicksell är det viktigt att denna kapitalutjämning ska ske genom att individens arbete ger honom en rättmätig del av kapitalbildningen, något som staten bör garantera, men inte genom att man i onödan dränerar rika med hjälp av skatter på kapital, gåvor och arv.</p>