Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-10T10:40:24Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Carolina Palma Pimenta Furlan.pdf: 1336228 bytes, checksum: 0e211203f57a4ebf656390682932eb68 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-09-04 / The advent of Internet enabled various means of communication among people and among them there are the social networking platforms, becoming a new form of relationship. Explore this new environment has become increasingly appreciated for researchers as well as for managers in a way in general. This environment provided the formation of communities and through them it is possible to identify the formation of groups through their interests. Most visualization algorithms for social networks are represented in graphs. The environment of this research consists in the subgroup Tocantins digital social of network Facebook, which has more than 10.000 members. In this paper the k-means algorithm for clustering of data represented by the five groups as the best solution found, and also the centrality measure of intermediation which revealed the existence of three most influential members in your posts, and four products or services was applied most Viewed within the subgroup. / O advento da Internet possibilitou vários meios de comunicação entre as pessoas e dentre elas destacam-se as plataformas de redes sociais, tornando-se uma nova forma de relacionamento. Explorar esse novo ambiente tornou-se cada vez mais apreciado para os pesquisadores, tanto quanto para os gestores de um modo em geral. Esse ambiente proporciona a formação de comunidades e através delas é possível a identificação de formação de grupos através dos seus interesses. A maioria dos algoritmos de visualização de redes sociais são representados em grafos. O ambiente dessa pesquisa consiste no subgrupo Tocantins digital da rede social Facebook, o qual possui mais de 10.000 membros. Neste ambiente utilizou-se a ferramenta API, na qual foi possível desenvolver aplicações para se coletar informações das postagens dos membros do grupo pesquisado. Neste trabalho foi aplicado o algoritmo k-médias para o agrupamento de dados representados pelos cinco grupos como a melhor solução encontrada, e também a medida centralidade de intermediação onde revelou a existência de três membros com maior influência em suas postagens, e quatro produtos ou serviços mais visualizados dentro do subgrupo.

This thesis aims at exploring the consequences of migration in Jhumpa Lahirir¡¦s novel The Namesake. Set in India and America, the story represents such immigrant experiences as the clash of cultures, the conflicts of assimilation, and the tangled ties between generations. In addition to introduction and conclusion, the thesis consists of three chapters, devoted respectively to issues of nostalgia, identity, and cultural hybridity. Chapter One explores the way nostalgia affects the Ganguli family in their daily life, including such aspects as food, clothing, their circle of friends, festivals and celebrations. To analyze Indian immigrants¡¦ longing for home and their attempts to retain homeland culture, I employ Svetlana Boym¡¦s theory on nostalgia, wherein two kinds of nostalgia are distinguished: the restorative and the reflective. Chapter Two focuses on immigrants¡¦ identity formation. The process of identity formation is associated with naming and generational problems. I adopt the Freudian theory of the Oedipus complex to explain the father-son conflicts: how the protagonist defies his father as well as the name given by him. Then, drawing upon Cathy Caruth¡¦s concept of traumatic awakening, I trace how the protagonist reconciles with his father and reaches maturity. Chapter Three examines how immigrants come to invent a hybrid cultural identity. I employ Homi Bhabha¡¦s concepts of in-bewteenness and the Third Space to point out the interplay of the Bengali heritage and the dominant American culture, which results in the phenomenon of a new, dynamic, and mixed culture. With globalization, borders and boundaries are constantly changing so that migration comes to be typical of human condition. In this sense, the immigrant experience stated in The Namesake foregrounds problems which might be encountered by all diasporas.

Abstract In this thesis, I attempt to examine Jamaica Kincaid¡¦s re-negotiation with the politics of power relations in her novels. Kncaid¡¦s novels, through the strategic deployment of autobiographical writing, redress the power dimension in the notions of self and history. The fact that Kincaid frames the field of power relations within the thematic recurrence of mother-daughter relations structures her novels in a way that conflates her personal stories with her group history. Moreover, such a structure emphatically registers the self-positioning act of Kincaid¡¦s writing as a strategy for survival. The first chapter explores how Kincaid mobilizes her self-writing as an act of political resistance. On the one hand, Kincaid opposes her writing which is delivered in the name of herself or her culture to the poststructuralist pronouncements of the general demise of a writing subject. On the other hand, Kincaid, through implicating the poststructuralist fracture of self in the protocol of decolonization, attempts to strategically inhabit in what Homi Bhabha calls the in-between space to define herself. The second chapter deals with the inscription of historical forces on the body. Foucault¡¦s genealogical unpacking of history in the body here helps to investigate how Kincaid¡¦s fictional alter egos bear and, more importantly, act out against the inscription of power. The third chapter focuses on the politics of Kincaid¡¦s autobiographical writing. At first, I unpack the relations between history and the politics of women¡¦s writing in the West Indies, and borrow the poststructuralist interrogation of Western historical knowledge to contradict the West¡¦s epistemological claims to West Indian history. And then I turn to the analysis of Kincaid¡¦s autobiographical writing, which, through its thematic deployment of mother-daughter relations, turns on the political empowerment in her strategic integration of her personal and collective history.

Ένα φαινόμενο που έκανε την εμφάνισή του τα τελευταία χρόνια είναι η μελέτη μεγάλων δικτύων που εμφανίζουν μια ιεραρχική δομή ανεξαρτήτως κλίμακας (large scale-free networks). Μια παραδοσιακή μέθοδος μοντελοποίησης δικτύων είναι η χρήση γραφημάτων και η χρησιμοποίηση αποτελεσμάτων που προκύπτουν από την Θεωρία Γράφων. Όμως στα κλασικά μοντέλα που έχουν μελετηθεί, δυο κόμβοι του ίδιου γραφήματος έχουν την ίδια πιθανότητα να συνδέονται με οποιουσδήποτε δυο άλλους κόμβους. Αυτός ο τρόπος μοντελοποίησης αποτυγχάνει να περιγράψει πολλά δίκτυα της καθημερινής ζωής, όπως δίκτυα γνωριμιών όπου οι κόμβοι συμβολίζουν ανθρώπους και συνδέονται μεταξύ τους αν γνωρίζονται άμεσα. Σε ένα τέτοιο δίκτυο είναι αναμενόμενο δυο φίλοι κάποιου ατόμου να έχουν μεγαλύτερη πιθανότητα να γνωρίζονται μεταξύ τους από ότι δυο τυχαία επιλεγμένοι ξένοι. Αυτό ακριβώς το φαινόμενο ονομάζεται συσσωμάτωση (clustering) και είναι χαρακτηριστικό για τα εν λόγω δίκτυα. Είναι γεγονός ότι πολλά δίκτυα που συναντώνται στη φύση αλλά και πάρα πολλά ανθρωπογενή δίκτυα εντάσσονται σε αυτήν την κατηγορία. Παραδείγματα τέτοιων είναι τα δίκτυα πρωτεϊνών, δίκτυα τροφικών αλυσίδων, επιδημικής διάδοσης ασθενειών, δίκτυα ηλεκτρικού ρεύματος, υπολογιστών, ιστοσελίδων του Παγκόσμιου Ιστού, δίκτυα γνωριμιών, επιστημονικών αναφορών (citations) κ.α. . Παρότι φαίνεται να άπτονται πολλών επιστημών όπως η Φυσική, η Βιολογία, η Κοινωνιολογία και η Πληροφορική, δεν έχουν τύχει ευρείας μελέτης, καθώς μέχρι στιγμής έλειπαν πραγματικά μεγάλα δίκτυα για πειραματική μελέτη (κενό που καλύφθηκε με την ανάπτυξη του Παγκόσμιου Ιστού). Μέχρι σήμερα δεν έχουν φωτιστεί όλα εκείνα τα σημεία και τα μεγέθη που είναι χαρακτηριστικά για αυτά τα δίκτυα και που πρέπει να εστιάσει η επιστημονική έρευνα, παρόλα αυτά έχει γίνει κάποια πρόοδος. Μια τέτοια έννοια που μπορεί να εκφραστεί με πολλά μεγέθη είναι η έννοια της κεντρικότητας (centrality) ενός κόμβου στο δίκτυο. Η χρησιμότητα ενός τέτοιου μεγέθους, αν μπορεί να οριστεί, είναι προφανής, για παράδειγμα στον τομέα της εσκεμμένης «επίθεσης» σε ένα τέτοιο δίκτυο (π.χ. δίκτυο υπολογιστών). Η ακριβής όμως συσχέτιση της κεντρικότητας με τα άλλα χαρακτηριστικά μεγέθη του δικτύου, όπως η συσσωμάτωση, δεν είναι γνωστή. Στόχος της εργασίας είναι να εμβαθύνει στην έννοια της κεντρικότητας, και χρησιμοποιεί σαν πεδίο πειραματισμών τον χώρο της εσκεμμένης επίθεσης σε ανεξάρτητα κλίμακας δίκτυα. Στο πλαίσιο αυτό γίνεται μια συνοπτική παρουσίαση των μοντέλων δικτύων που έχουν προταθεί μέχρι σήμερα και αναλύεται η έννοια της κεντρικότητας μέσω των παραδοσιακών ορισμών της από την επιστήμη της Κοινωνιολογίας. Στη συνέχεια προτείνεται μια σειρά ορισμών της κεντρικότητας που την συνδέουν με μεγέθη του δικτύου όπως ο συντελεστής συσσωμάτωσης. Η καταλληλότητα των ορισμών αυτών διαπιστώνεται στην πράξη, εξομοιώνοντας πειραματικά επιθέσεις σε ανεξάρτητα κλίμακας μεγάλα δίκτυα και χρησιμοποιώντας στρατηγικές επίθεσης που βασίζονται σε αυτές. / A trend in recent years is the study of large networks which possess a hierarchical structure independent of the current scale (large scale-free networks). A traditional method of network modelling is the use of graphs and the usage of results based on Graph Theory. Until recently, the classical models studied, describe the probability of two random vertices connecting with each other as equal for all pairs of vertices. This modelling fails to describe many everyday networks such as acquaintance networks, where the vertices are individuals and connect with an edge if they know each other

This manuscript deals with the problem of markerless motion capture. An approach to thisproblem is model-based and is divided into two steps : an initialization step in which the initialpose is estimated, and a tracking which computes the current pose of the subject using infor-mation of previous ones. Classically, the initialization step is done manually, for bidding the possibility to be used online, or requires constraining actions of the subject. We propose an automatic real-time markerless initialization step, that relies on topological information provided by skeletonization of a 3D reconstruction of the subject. This topological information is then represented as a tree, which is matched with another tree used as modeldescription, in order to identify the different parts of the subject. In order to provide such a method, we propose some contributions in both digital topology and graph theory researchfields. As our method requires real-time computation, we first focus on the speed optimization of skeletonization methods, and on the design of new fast skeletonization schemes providing good results. In order to efficiently match the tree representing the topological information with the tree describing the model, we propose new matching definitions and associated algorithms. Finally, we study how to improve the robustness of our method by the use of innovative con-straints in the model. This manuscript ends by a study of the application of our method on several data sets, demon-strating its interesting properties : fast computation, robustness, and adaptability to any kindof subjects

Utilisant un cadre théorique hybride, mêlant travaux de géographie, notamment culturelle, et approche littéraire et stylistique, ce travail de thèse interroge les diverses spatialités mccanniennes et leur écriture, mais aussi les implications éthiques et esthétiques de cette articulation. Il étudie la manière dont la représentation de ces spatialités pousse l’écriture à chercher son équilibre, alors qu’elle s’inscrit dans des espaces diégétiques et narratifs caractérisés par l’entre-deux et l’hybridité. Ces deux notions sont placées au cœur d’un corpus mu par un élan irréductible et kaléidoscopique, définissable comme une quête d’équilibre et dont éthique et esthétique constituent les facettes les plus essentielles.Sont donc observées les formes et modalités des spatialités mccanniennes, la relation que les personnages entretiennent avec elles, ainsi que leur inscription dans un contexte contemporain. L’écriture de l’entre-deux et de l’hybridité, sources potentielles d’équilibre comme de déséquilibre, est également analysée. On voit enfin comment ces états intermédiaires sont propices à un élan impliquant la création de lignes dynamiques constituant un mouvement vers l’Autre. Cet élan interroge bien souvent la relation avec l’Art et avec l’Autre, ainsi que l’équilibre parfois problématique entre esthétique et éthique. Les possibles contradictions entre ces deux derniers pôles sont examinées, de même que le potentiel créatif, voire démocratique des échanges permis par leur dialogue. / This thesis uses a hybrid theoretical approach mixing cultural geography as well as literature and stylistics in order to study the various spatialities that can be found in Colum McCann’s fictional work. It focuses on the writing of space, place and landscape, as well as on its ethical and aesthetical aspects. It analyses the way representing these spatialities forces the texts to try and find some sense of balance while the realities they describe and the world they were written in are characterised by in-betweenness and hybridity. These notions are at the core of this corpus, which is defined by an impetus that is both irrepressible and kaleidoscopic and that can be defined as a quest for balance in which ethics and aesthetics play a most essential role.The forms those spatialities can take, the bond the characters have created or create with them as well as the way they are inscribed in the contemporary world are analysed. This study also examines the writing of in-betweenness and hybridity, which can be factors of both balance and imbalance. This intermediarity encourages the development of an impulse which means creating dynamic trajectories towards the Other. This impetus interrogates relationships to Art and Otherness, as well as the (im)balance between aesthetics and ethics. It is therefore particularly relevant to scrutinize the latent contradictions between these two poles but also the creative, sometimes even democratic potential of their interactions.

This thesis deploys Homi Bhabha's perspective of postcolonial literary theory as a critical procedure to examine particular instances of fiction, as well as reportage on Botswana. Its unifying interest is to pinpoint the shifting nature or reality of Botswana and, by extension, of African identities. To that end, I use Bhabha's concept of liminality to inform the work of writers such as Unity Dow, Alexander McCall Smith, and instances of reportage (by Rupert Isaacson and Caitlin Davies), from the 1990s to date. The aims of the thesis are, among other things, to establish the extent to which Homi Bhabha's appropriation of the term liminality (which derives from Victor Turner's notion of limen for inbetweenness), and its application in the postcolonial context inflects the reading of the above works whose main motifs include the following: a contestation of any views which privilege one culture above another, challenging a jingoistic rootedness in one culture, and promoting an awareness of the existence of several, interlocking or even clashing realities which finally produce multiple meanings, values and identities. In short, it is proposed that identity is not a given but rather a product of a lived reality and therefore a social construct, something always in process. The thesis begins by theorizing liminality in Chapter 1 within the context of Homi Bhabha's understanding and interrogation of the colonial discourse. This is followed by the contextualization of liminality through the reading of, firstly, the fiction of Unity Dow in Chapters 2 and 3, and then the "detective" fiction of Alexander McCall Smith in Chapters 4 and 5. In the discussion of these works, I also touch on instances of reportage which relate to the lives of the authors. In the case of Smith's "detective" fiction, for example, reportage refers to his incorporation of actual historical events and personages whose impact, I argue, suggests the liminality of culture. In Chapter 6, the idea of reportage varies slightly to denote works of fiction in which there is a great deal of historical fact. Thus Rupert Isaacson's The Healing Land: A Kalahari Journey and Caitlin Davies' Place of Reeds are treated as works of reportage in line with Truman Capote's application of that term. What comes out most evidently in this study is the shifting idea of (Botswana/African) identity. It should be noted that rather than present an all-embracing account of the fiction on Botswana, the study only looks at the selected examples of writing and reportage. / University of South Africa National Research Foundation / English Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (English)

This thesis deploys Homi Bhabha's perspective of postcolonial literary theory as a critical procedure to examine particular instances of fiction, as well as reportage on Botswana. Its unifying interest is to pinpoint the shifting nature or reality of Botswana and, by extension, of African identities. To that end, I use Bhabha's concept of liminality to inform the work of writers such as Unity Dow, Alexander McCall Smith, and instances of reportage (by Rupert Isaacson and Caitlin Davies), from the 1990s to date. The aims of the thesis are, among other things, to establish the extent to which Homi Bhabha's appropriation of the term liminality (which derives from Victor Turner's notion of limen for inbetweenness), and its application in the postcolonial context inflects the reading of the above works whose main motifs include the following: a contestation of any views which privilege one culture above another, challenging a jingoistic rootedness in one culture, and promoting an awareness of the existence of several, interlocking or even clashing realities which finally produce multiple meanings, values and identities. In short, it is proposed that identity is not a given but rather a product of a lived reality and therefore a social construct, something always in process. The thesis begins by theorizing liminality in Chapter 1 within the context of Homi Bhabha's understanding and interrogation of the colonial discourse. This is followed by the contextualization of liminality through the reading of, firstly, the fiction of Unity Dow in Chapters 2 and 3, and then the "detective" fiction of Alexander McCall Smith in Chapters 4 and 5. In the discussion of these works, I also touch on instances of reportage which relate to the lives of the authors. In the case of Smith's "detective" fiction, for example, reportage refers to his incorporation of actual historical events and personages whose impact, I argue, suggests the liminality of culture. In Chapter 6, the idea of reportage varies slightly to denote works of fiction in which there is a great deal of historical fact. Thus Rupert Isaacson's The Healing Land: A Kalahari Journey and Caitlin Davies' Place of Reeds are treated as works of reportage in line with Truman Capote's application of that term. What comes out most evidently in this study is the shifting idea of (Botswana/African) identity. It should be noted that rather than present an all-embracing account of the fiction on Botswana, the study only looks at the selected examples of writing and reportage. / University of South Africa National Research Foundation / English Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (English)

Cette thèse se propose de relire l’œuvre de J. D. Salinger à la lumière de l'usage que fait l'écrivain des motifs du détour et du suspens, tous deux caractérisés par un fonctionnement ambivalent. L'écriture de Salinger, fondamentalement introspective, prend par bien des aspects des allures de quête, à la fois identitaire et littéraire. L'exploration de l'identité qu'elle met en scène implique notamment un détour par l'altérité, auteur et personnages revêtant un certain nombre de masques, au risque parfois de refuser de s'en défaire ensuite. L'auteur se devine également derrière ses pratiques d'écriture, dont la dimension obsessionnelle révèle un profond désir de maîtrise de son travail, qui l'amène parfois à se perdre dans ses textes et s'apparente finalement davantage à une attitude de fuite qu'à la recherche d'un idéal littéraire. Dans l’œuvre salingerienne, le détour participe d'une réflexion sur les concepts de norme et de déviance, ainsi que sur le thème de l'errance. D'abord perçu comme néfaste, il apparaît à terme comme un moyen privilégié d'accéder à des révélations insoupçonnées. L’éloge de l'écart que l'on observe sur le plan thématique trouve un écho dans l'utilisation par les personnages-narrateurs de stratégies narratives louant les mérites du détour. La digression, le fragment, le renvoi aux marges du texte ainsi que l'intertextualité – autant d'outils interrogeant la distinction généralement établie entre le centre et la périphérie, entre l'accessoire et l'essentiel – révèlent toute leur efficacité lorsqu'ils sont employés pour aborder des sujets qui échappent aux cadres traditionnels. Le décentrement du texte passe également dans certains cas par un recours à la métatextualité qui permet notamment à l'écrivain de prolonger et de mettre en scène la réflexion qu'il mène sur son écriture. Les encarts métatextuels, parce qu'ils viennent interrompre temporairement la narration, peuvent aussi être considérés comme des manifestations du suspens dans le texte, suspens d'abord employé par Salinger pour interroger les notions de progression et de stase. Son œuvre présente simultanément une réflexion sur la résistance au passage du temps et la notion d'entre-deux, l'auteur affectionnant particulièrement la représentation de périodes liminales, à la fois lieux du mouvement et lieux hors du temps. Par ailleurs, l'écrivain s'attache par diverses stratégies narratives déployées dans ses textes à suspendre l’interprétation du sens, qui se révèle mouvant, différé, voire tout simplement retenu, lorsqu'il ne s'abîme pas dans l'absurde ou le non-sens. Ce faisant, Salinger interroge la validité de toute interprétation, plaidant pour une approche plus intuitive de l'art, et s'efforce du même geste de repousser indéfiniment l'achèvement de son œuvre, trahissant par là l'urgence éprouvée de mettre à distance l'angoisse mortifère qui l'obsède. / The aim of this PhD research is to try to shed new light on J. D. Salinger's work by focusing on the writer's use of two inherently ambivalent motifs, namely detour and suspension. Salinger's writing, partly because of its introspective nature, often takes on the appearance of a quest, both personal and artistic. It stages the author's exploration of his own identity, which implies exploring otherness through the use of masks worn by both characters and writer, who sometimes refuse to later put them down. The study of Salinger's writing practices shows an obsessional dimension indicative of his powerful desire to control every aspect of his work, sometimes leading him to fully immerse himself in the world of fiction – an attitude in the end more evocative of evasion than of a search for literary perfection. In Salinger's work, the representation of detours is the starting point of a reflection on the concepts of norm and deviance, as well as on the theme of wandering. While it first appears as harmful, the detour motif eventually shows its potential for the revelation of unsuspected truths. Deviation is thus presented in a positive light, and its effectiveness as a writing strategy is repeatedly praised. Such stylistic devices as digression, fragmentation, or intertextuality are called upon to question the classical distinction between center and margins, between what is essential and what is incidental. Those devices are most effective when it comes to dealing with topics unfit for traditional approaches. The author’s will to decenter the text also involves the use of metatextuality, which serves the writer's exploration of his own writing and its staging for the reader's benefit. Metatextual passages, as they temporarily bring the narration to a halt, may also be seen as manifestations of suspension. In his work, Salinger first uses suspension to question the notions of progress and stasis. His texts invite the reader to engage in a reflection on the characters' resistance to the passing of time as well as the notion of in-betweenness. Indeed, the author has specialized in the depiction of those liminal periods in the lives of individuals, which are characterized by change and an out-of-time quality. Moreover, the writer makes use of different stylistic devices to suspend the reader’s access to the meaning of his stories. In most of them meaning remains unstable and unsure, whether elucidation is deferred or simply refused to the reader, who is also confronted to manifestations of the absurd or even utter nonsense. Salinger thus challenges the value of interpretation, pleading for a more intuitive approach to art, and makes sure he indefinitely postpones the completion of his own work, in the same way that his characters develop strategies to postpone their confrontation with death.

The aim of this study is to gain a better understanding of how second-generation immigrants with Iraqi backgrounds navigate through and adapt to their identity formation processes in relation to Swedish society.  Previous research has examined other ethnic groups of second-generation immigrants and has provided insights that contribute to our study, but there is limited research on second-generation immigrants with Iraqi backgrounds, even though Iraqis are one of the largest groups that have immigrated to Sweden since the 1980s. To achieve the study's purpose and answer the research question, we have chosen to conduct a qualitative study based on 10 qualitative semi-structured interviews with second-generation immigrants with Iraqi backgrounds between the ages of 18 and 30. The results of the study have been analyzed using the following theories: postcolonial perspective, symbolic interactionism and the following theoretically grounded conceptual definitions: identity, in-betweenness, gender patterns and gender regime. The findings of the study reveal that second-generation immigrants with Iraqi backgrounds find themselves in a state of in-betweenness, where they do not fully identify as neither Iraqis nor Swedes. Furthermore, our study shows that cultural, social, and symbolic interactions influence second-generation immigrants with Iraqi backgrounds and their identity formation process, as a symbolic act reinforces an individual's identity. Adaptation to Swedish society is limited for second-generation immigrants with Iraqi backgrounds due to the differing perceptions and expectations of these two cultures regarding what is accepted and deviant, influenced by Iraqi culture and religion.